Where were you when Balloon Boy (Falcon Heene) was floating around in the sky?

I got home from work by the time it was discovered he was hiding in the attic. But for a good day, the people of this country were captivated by an experimental aircraft that supposedly had a boy inside. Oh, many people ignored the fact that it looked like the aircraft probably could not fly with the child inside. Many of us were too busy being captivated by the sheer absurdity the story.

As a headline for this article/editorial from the Boston Globe explains: Admit it– we make Balloon Boy stories fly. Hey, remember, the Montauk Monster from a year ago? (I’m surprised it hasn’t inspired a movie yet.) Odd things grab our attention. However, difference between the average person and media is how long one get attached to a story. I’m guilty of it as I write this post.

However, there actually is more behind the story this time around. It’s still all about attention.

While editorial cartoonists were going “Hey, remember that movie Up?” or making a stretched political allusions (Obama as the Balloon Boy because of the rising deficit… or something like that), some journalists realized that they had seen the family before.

They were on Wife Swap.  The episode with the storm-chasing dad (and his family) gets paired with the family that is all about safety.

More facts have been unfolding about Richard Heene, domestic violence issues, his playing scientist (with only a high school diploma). For the sake of this post, I want to focus on the fact that, as AP reports:

But the investigation could reach beyond the Heenes, possibly into the world of reality-show promotions.

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said documents show that a media outlet had agreed to pay the  ”>Heenes. Alderden did not name the organization but said it was in an industry that blurs “the line between entertainment and news.” It was not clear whether the deal was signed before or after the alleged hoax, or whether the media outlet was a possible conspirator. If so, the organization could face charges as well.

People are seeking attention– media attention for whatever reason with reality shows looking to be the easiest way to get known. Perhaps people like being part of the spectacle or perhaps they’re looking to break into acting.

The current state of reality TV stinks for entertainment, especially now that most people are aware of the scripting or that people formulate the drama themselves. I mean there’s even the Cartoon Network show, Total Drama Island and it’s sequel Total Drama Action. I think the shark has been flown over once there’s a cartoon version. People are actually watching regular sitcoms and drama again. (To be fair, there are pretty good series airing. Pysch, for example is awesome.)

It’s been a decade since MTV’s Real World  that started the craze for reality television as we know it. Oh yeah, there was/is Candid Camera but that’s different as we weren’t following people lives at that point. And besides, memory is a fickle thing. In the beginning, the show was actually an interesting social experiment. 7 strangers transplanted to NYC from different areas of the US, and dealing with each other, culture shock and working.

But like with many things MTV it started to suck. Probably due to a combination of patterns of casting on the show and that the continued on running long enough that the teenager who grew up watching were eligble to try out to be a cast members. They recognized what role they might play and even then they started their own drama just to be that one person and strecth their 15 minutes as long as they can.

Then reality TV began to change from learning about real people’s lives or social experiments to DRAMA, DRAMA, DRA-MA. We have gotten to the point where we have scripted series that pretend to be reality TV shows.

However, that isn’t to say that all reality TV turned rotten with some bad apples. Some of the shows that require a modicum of talent (Top Chef, So You Think You Can Dance?, etc.) are still good. Probably because people are actually doing something, and have talent worthy of being praised. In this case the drama is just an actual side-effect. Even, my current guilty pleasure The Rachel Zoe Project, features Mrs. Zoe and her assistants doing something. Oh you might think it’s easy dressing people, but from experience, it is not. Much less if they are celebrities in full view of the public eye.

Who am I kidding? I watch the show for Brad. He's so dreamy.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we also have shows like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition which provide homes for families dealing with hardships.  Or you have a show like Kathy Griffin: Life on the D-List where it’s clear to everyone that reality show is not always real, and is half the fun.

The major problem with hoaxes like the “Balloon Boy” and the rise and fall of reality TV is that people want big crazy moments to happen, but are too impatient to just let it happen. If they aren’t watching and waiting for the big moment Richard Heene wanted fame, and instead off doing anything major to deserve it or waiting around for luck to happen to him, he half-assed a hoax, and now has to face felony charges, probably for waisting the time and resources of local officials looking for his son.

This story will be forgotten soon. The lessoned to be learned from all this is that classic moments (songs, albums, novels, artwork, events) that are craved are either crafted by tireless work, accident or sprezzatura.

What Gregg Gillis does is technically illegal.

I don’t mean playing on the nostalgia of my generation by using musical touchstones of our parent’s records, 90’s alt. rock and rap. I used to think he was an evil genius on the level of Urban Outfitters. I stopped thinking he was evil once I heard Salt n’ Pepa’s “Push It” over Nirvana’s “Lithium.” It’s an art and a craft.

No, what’s illegal about Girl Talk is that he is literally creating music out of samples and only samples. Sure he gives credit to all the artists whose songs, and that amounts to 300+ songs, that he appropriates but not all artists might see that way.

However, Girl Talk is not the only artist working with samples or editing entire songs. In fact, he is part of a music movement that has been around since the beginning of the decade, if not since the 90’s. The mash-up / bootleg / bastard pop sound has been around for quite a while.

First to explain mash-ups: Mash-ups are two (or more) songs blended together to create another composition.

Most mash-ups are of the A vs. B variety, where one songs a capella is laid over the backing track of another. On the other end of the spectrum, where Girl Talk is, is album long mixes of many songs. Obviously, in between these two, there are the longer mashups which range from anywhere to 2-6 songs.

The history of mash-ups goes back to at least the 1950’s (The Beatles’s “Revolution 9″, anyone?) However, the contemporary version, with digital editing probably started in the 80’s. Wikipedia puts the “Renaissance” point at 2001, with Soulwax/2manydj’s album As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2  and  Freelance Hellraiser’s “Stroke of Genie-us” which pits Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” with the The Strokes’ “Hard to Explain.”

However, I would have to say that mash-ups became well known to the wider world in 2004 with DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album. The album made up exclusively of the vocal tracks from Jay-Z’s The Black Album and samples from The Beatles’  The Beatles (a.k.a. the White Album). The controversy (EMI’s legal actions and the internet’s response) and popularity (Recieving notice within the pages of the New Yorker and the Village Voice). 

Coinciding with interest in making these songs came P2P (peer to peer) networks like Kazaa and Limewire (replacing Napster and Audiogalaxy) came to the scene allowing people to trade mp3s and mash up artists to trade the backing tracks and a capella vocals needed to create. Along with this, audio editing software became more accessible to non-professionals.

With the rise of popularity in mash-up culture came websites, Get Your Bootleg On (GYBO) and club night, like Bootie.

Early on, websites, P2P programs and mash up artists were being hit by cease and desist orders, probably due to sheer amount of content being shared amongst people. However, things have gotten better for mash up artists as the recording artists and members of the music industry have realized that file sharing and mashups are part of the new music culture.

You may know Danger Mouse now as a producer on Gorillaz’s Demon Days or more recently on Beck’s Modern Guilt. He’s also one half of Gnarls Barkley with rapper Cee-Lo. Mark Vidler a.k.a. Go Home Productions has had success with “Rapture Riders” (Blondie’s “Rapture” / The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm”) which made an appearance on Blondie’s greatest hits album, along with his other mash-ups. DJ Earworm, known for his “United States of Pop” mixes, was contacted by Annie Lennox to create “Backwards/Forwards.”

However, this type of sampling and appropriation is nothing new in art. Technology has made it easier for sure, but it has an even longer history beyond mash-ups. For example, author William S. Burroughs popularized cut-ups both of the literary and audio variety. Artists of various (multi)media have been performing experiments with video, audio and text for a long time.

What makes mash-ups any different (or the same with some of the experiments)?

A quote by Johnathan Zittrain, professor of internet law at Harvard Law School, might explain:

But copyright law was written with a particular form of industry in mind. The flourishing of information technology gives amateurs and homerecording artists powerful tools to build and share interesting, transformative, and socially valuable art drawn from pieces of popular cultures. There’s no place to plug such an important cultural sea change into the current legal regime.

Like with many things, it ultimately ends up with money. Now, upcoming artists and bands have a pretty good argument against file sharing, major artists and bands have less sympathy from people when fighting these battles.

Greg Gillis explains why he does what he does in a documentary Good Copy Bad Copy, which explores various viewpoints on intellectual property and copyright:

Everyone is bombared with media enough, that I think we’ve almost been forced to take it upon oursevelves as an art form… that’s exactly what’s happening right now in remix culture… I think the currently laws… are prohibiting the flow of culture and music.

Mash-ups are not just about art vs. money and legality, a fight that has been going on for a long time, the culture is also part of a larger internet culture that is moving far beyond the cultural norms and laws of set our society. Yet, it might be simply explained by people taking media into their own hands and sharing it with other people.

“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.”

        “Thoughtcrime is death.”                      

                  “Two minutes hate.”

“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”

Ironically, we’ve reduced George Orwell’s magnum opus, Nineteen Eighty-Four into a few simple Newspeak-ian phrases and a jumble of ideas about totalitarianism and privacy issues. Some political discussions can be reduced to each side calling the other Big Brother. An image search for Big Brother pulls up images and posters of Former President George W. Bush and Current President Barack Obama alike.

We invoke Orwell and the novel on few issues. There has been a rapid advancement in surveillance technologies. The United States is currently involved wars in the Middle East, far enough away for many people to keep out of mind. According to some our language has ‘devolved’ into Newspeak (see adding i- or e- to everything or txtspeak amongst other examples.)

The worst amongst the times 1984 is invoked is during partisan attacks between political parties. Comparing your opponent to Big Brother when they do–well, anything you don’t like– cheapens the discourse and the use to the metaphor, making it useless when the allegory is actually applicable.

It’s easy to just look at the surface elements presented in the novel, but we need to remember how insidious the Inner Party is, especially if we don’t want things to turn out doubleplusungood.

Now, other dystopian novels tackle similar topics, but 1984 captures people minds and emotions in a way the others don’t. Fahrenheit 451 is a society where books are burned by ‘firemen’ in order to keep the hedonistic anti-intellectual society in place. However, Bradbury was attacking mass media for ‘dumbing down’ society and if you read the interview in some editions, it reads uncomfortably close to arguments about political correctness.

Brave New World is better with a scary vision of mass production and sameness inspired by Ford’s assembly line, but his attacks on the supposed hedonism of certain activites seem archaic, such as the non-procreational sex.

Bradbury and Huxley seemed to fear that it would be society’s wants that will doom us to dystopias. Orwell, however saw the collapse coming from the top. We don’t know who Big Brother is or who the leaders of the ruling Inner Party are, one of the things 1984 scary. All that is known is that there was a war fought, a revolution won and the rest is lost down the memory hole. In Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, there seems to be a point where people let these things happen, where as in 1984 things are made to happen.

But there is a difference in what makes the scenario of each novel scary. F451: Burn the book. BNW: Drink the soma. 1984: Speak the Newspeak. The first two are very material. You can point to the problem. The protagonists in the first two do, and either survive to tell or die trying.

What makes 1984 really scary– for me at least– is that even the dissent is manufactured. In the other books you can run off somewhere away from the dystopia, or you can find someone to share the dissent with.

Not so in Oceania.

You would have to make it to Eastasia or Eurasia, something hard to do when the enemy of the moment keeps changing. The whole world is tied up in a war also– if there even is a war– if there is even another country. If you tell somebody about your dissenting thoughts, you’ll be reported to the thoughtpolice.  Oh, and the government also toys with you, letting him think you think you have found an escape and an ally in the Inner Party.

But that’s just the beginning,the amount of control that the Inner Party has over information masterful. The propaganda is genius. The control over information is air-tight. Heck, it is even your own job is to retouch images and delete records of events and people. (Orwell predicted one of the problems of the digital age: With the internet and image editing, information can be transient.) Even your journal, full of your own thoughts can betray you. Your own thoughts are trapped in your head. And even that doesn’t last.

Welcome to Winston’s world.

A Soviet "nonperson" vanishes: commissar Nikolai Yezhov retouched after falling from favor and being executed in 1940. (Pictures and description from Wikpedia)

Now, Orwell was writing from the beginning of the 20th century, with the first two World Wars just happening years ago and with the world entering the time of the Cold War. Much of Oceania’s politics and actions are based off the Soviet Union, which he saw as a perversion of the Socialist ideas he held and even some of the actions  US and the UK itself during that time.

That said, I don’t think we are all that close to the world Orwell presents. Have things occasionally started blowing in a similar direction. Yes, in the past and even during modern times. Remember free speech zones? Wiretapping? (The previous administration should be slammed for that and the current administration should get rid of it.) Heck, part of the reason the US went to war in Iraq was that initially very few people were willing to risk their patriotism being questioned, if they were against the war or even questioning it. The accusations over patriotism continue on today. 

However, for all of the previous administration’s faults, there must have been a few poor souls who actually wanted to help the country out and there was some actual good done. That and the propaganda machine of the Bush Years was nowhere near the level of that of the novel. Bush’s popularity dropped down to low 30-something percent, if not lower towards the end. The same can be said of the start of Obama’s current term. One can achieve similar ‘control’ over the media by understanding how the  news-cycle works and hiring a good graphic designer or a team who knows how to brand.

So basically: No, the census is not like 1984. Neither is the public option, that’s Logan’s Run, but not really. I’m sure there are some for of Bush’s policies, just can’t think of them off the top of my head. Getting comments deleted or yourself banned from a message board on the internet… very much not like 1984.

When someone goes on how something is like 1984, ask them to follow through with their whole arguement. Someone yelling “1984! Big Brother! Thoughtcrime!” and nothing else doesn’t have much of one. And, if they have a television or radio show ask yourself what their motivation is for doing so.

That all said, the novel serves as useful reminder on what real totalitarianism is. There are many things that governments and corporations can do to monitor its citizens and customers, but when we have the ability monitor the government and businesses right back, we don’t have to be afraid. Really, you  just have to pay attention and actually participate in the government. It’s when they come for all the information and change the language around, that’s when we will have something worry about.

When it comes around, you hopefully won’t be singing:

Someone to claim us, someone to follow /

Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo /

Someone to fool us, someone like you /

We want you Big Brother, Big Brother…

So, as you know I work at Blockbuster as one of my jobs. So the above movies I’m about to talk about have already came out in theatres, but just come out on DVD now or will be out soon.

Let’s look at the plot of these two movies.

Adventureland (from Wikipedia):

It is the summer of 1987 and James Brennan ( has just graduated with a comparative literature major from Oberlin College. He is looking forward to touring Europe for the summer and going to Columbia University for graduate school in journalism when his parents announce they won’t be able help him financially. James looks for summer jobs, but can only find one, at Adventureland, a local amusement park in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Oh hey, why does that sound familiar? Hmm.

Well, anyway, the real Adventureland is on Long Island. It was changed because the amusement park has changed a lot since the 80’s.

Post Grad (from Fox Searchlight):

Ryden Malby had a plan. Do well in high school, thereby receiving a great college scholarship. Now that she’s finally graduated, it’s time for her to find a gorgeous loft apartment and land her dream job at the city’s best publishing house. But when Jessica Bard, Ryden’s college nemesis steals her perfect job, Ryden is forced to move back to her childhood home. Stuck with her eccentric family – a stubborn do-it-yourself dad, an overly thrifty mom, a politically incorrect grandma, a very odd little brother – and a growing stack of rejected job applications, Ryden starts to feel like she’s going nowhere. The only upside is spending time with her best friend, Adam – and running into her hot next-door neighbor, David. But if Ryden’s going to survive life as a post grad, it may be time to come up with a new plan.

Oh hey, this is my life (along with many others)! Alexis Bledel, anything we had during my time as a viewer of Gilmore Girls is over.

Seriously, filmmakers and Hollywood, don’t you think you’re milking the recession thing a bit much? And why us English majors?

Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to cry myself to sleep before I have wake up early to work my two retail jobs.

Let’s travel back to a long time ago, say a year ago. It is very early fall, with school starting across campuses. Television shows are starting new seasons. Including one very popular show, Gossip Girl. OMG. I know. I wasn’t much of a fan of the show, but a friend of mine suckered me into watching it. “Summer Kind of Wonderful” kicks of Season 2, exploring what the characters did on their summer vacations.

The thing about this show was that I knew some of these characters. (Not Ed Westwick’s character Chuck ‘I’m Batman Chuck Bass’ Bass, he would not be able to exist in this mortal realm.) While my rich friends and acquaintances tend live far out on Long Island, the attitude, mannerisms and opportunities afforded to them was something I knew about. This isn’t what made me angry about the show. What made me angry was something I should have seen coming since it showed some of the characters having internships.

Enter Dan Humphrey, the lead male character who is supposedly a writer. His mentor / teacher person is chastising him for not having a story ready for submission. For submission for the New Yorker and the Paris Review.

Let me repeat that: For submission for the New Yorker and the Paris Review.

Needless to say, after my eye started to twitch uncontrollably, I started yelling at the screen to the shock of my confused friend.

For those loyal fans of the show or those who simply who do not know: best-selling authors have problems getting published in the above literary journals. No matter how much money a person has, they probably are not getting a story in, especially someone still in high school.

Now, a good number of things in this show are implausible. Chuck Bass’ fashion sense is what happens when a tornado hits a Ralph Lauren store. You can’t get downtown from the upper west side within a half-an-hour. But the above scenario took the cake and had sex on it. (I mean, this is Gossip Girl.)

Hollywood always had a weird relationship with writing and writers. You used to like us, Hollywood–what happened? Gone are the days where Truman Capote could fill up a concert hall for a reading of sections from In Cold Blood. Gone are the days when Gore Vidal would beating with William F. Buckley on the news. Now, we’re all stuck in the basement writing, paid or unpaid. Now fictional rich teenagers are doing better than real life writers are.

If I had to take an educated guess, the fall of the big name author had to happen some time in the 1950’s. (Outside of major playwrights, other writers seemed to always be regulated to the background.) It would have to be roughly around Capote’s time, as I find it hard to name an author that would sell out audience for a reading or recall someone being famous solely because he or she was a writer/author. Perhaps the decline of author-celebrities happened because of a decline in reading. Conversely, perhaps there was a rise in the number of authors appealing to various new markets. The latter is great for intellectual and social, bad for anybody hoping to strike it rich.

There seems to be a few ways to get well known as a writer. You would think that it would be to write a lot, especially a series. But then I present you with the cases of Daniel Steel or David Patterson, big names that nobody would be able to put a face to.

No, option 1 is to let Hollywood come to you. Stephen King has written lots of novels, but is mostly known for his short stories and only a few novels. Why? The Shining, Carrie, Pet Semetary, Catherine, and the non-horror Stand by Me are known to a large audience as movies, not as short stories or novels. But even then, King is a rare case. Even those authors optioned for movies will have their work overshadow them. I mean, I really like Michael Chabon, but I saw the DVD case for the Mysteries of Pittsburgh at one of my jobs, and didn’t make the connection some time later at a bookstore.

Option 2 is to have an interesting life and write a memoir about it. This is what many critics moan about when ranting about the rise of the memoir, especially due to the spectacle of it, where the battle on the best selling non-fiction charts seems to be over who had it worse and whose story is the most uplifting.

Sometimes these two options come together. For example, J.K. Rowling may have just been the author of the Harry Potter series, like many authors of fantasy and sci-fi stories who are considered to be just there. Yet, a good portion of the public knows her face, because she has a story herself, a real-life rags to riches story.

James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces shows how things can be twisted to someone’s advantage. His heart-rending memoir was some novel that wasn’t doing well while being shopped around as fiction. (Probably because it reads like the love child of e.e. cummings and Chuck Palahniuk.) However, everyone knew that memoirs and autobiographies were selling like hotcakes, and thus the book was marketed as such. Oprah heard of his ‘inspirational story’ and I think you all remember what happened from there.

Outside of Oprah, you might get a movie made about your inspirational life.(Nothing seems to sell more than something based off a true story.)

Speaking of which, it seems like to make it big in the writing world you almost have to be a celebrity to become one or know some and be ready to dish our their dirty secrets.  This is why celebrities write books (or have people write one for them) because it’s instant profit. Now, I don’t want to knock all celebrity writers as some of them are are actually good writers. For example, Barbara Walter’s Audition is going to be a far better– or at least interesting– read than Paris Hilton’s Confessions of an Heiress.

By now you can tell its a bit of game. Kathy Griffin strikes for the heart of silliness of the celebrity book concept and the Oprah effect with her new book:

Yes, Offical Book Club Selections is the title.

It all seems so fake doesn’t it?

If you still want to write after this post, than perhaps you’ve realized you’re not in it for the money. In that case, you might want to turn off the television. Not because it’ll distract you from writing, but because you’ll start wondering why fictional people are doing better than you. Don’t worry though, the characters have writers behind them.

Maybe you’ll be one of them.

I understand what GLSEN and the Ad Council are trying to attempt with their “ThinkB4YouSpeak” campaign. GLSEN has successfully organized various anti-bullying campaigns, the Day of Silence (and other ‘Days of Action’ and has resources for students and teachers to start their own Gay-Straight Alliances. From someone who has experienced general bullying and (thankfully) very minor anti-gay bullying growing up, it’s a cause worth fighting for.

That said, I think they might be off the mark with this campaign.

Some people, especially who self identify as (hardcore) gamers, are reacting negatively towards the posters for a few different reasons, all of which deal with how people communicate and how they think they are communicating. Similar to the message of my previous post, knowing the vernacular of the day and the constructions behind them is important. 

Beyond the awful late 90’s flavor of the B4 within the campaign’s name, there are few things that need to be addressed.

1) Many people aren’t getting the message that the the above posters are trying to impart. The message some people seem to be getting is that:

“Well, if you’re going to call us this and make fun of us, we’re going to do it right back. So there.”

This interpretation is understandable as most teenagers are probably not going to ponder too long about the intent behind the ad, not realizing the insult is only hypothetical. So while GLSEN is actually saying:

“It hurts you when we say ______ to you, and it hurts when you say ‘that’s so gay’ to other people. Let’s not say things to hurt each other.”

it may not be readily gleaned on first read. With advertising, the first read is the most important.

2) There are still misconceptions about GLBTQ people that still need to be confronted. In reading some message board posts in relation to the ads, I noticed that some people still believed the myth that most people choose to be gay. Which means that there is a significant part of the teenage population that would see the poster as one group of people who ‘choose’ to act one way making fun of another.

People need to educated about the idea that science is discovering that homosexuality leans heavily towards the nature side of the “nature vs. nurture” scale. Once that is established, then the idea of making fun of someone for the way they were born and for doing/acting in a way that doesn’t harm anybody being wrong can be introduced.

    A side note: 
On these message boards the words “stereotyping” and “discrimination” were thrown around in relation to ‘gamer’ identity. This leads be to believe that there’s also a lot of people aren’t paying attention in history class during the civil rights portion and/or too heavily invested in the identity of gamer. Gaming culture, and the larger part of ‘nerd’ culture (fantasy and sci-fi literature / TV / film), also has had its fair share of problems in relation of representing minority people or with fans who are minorities, problems that still continue today. This is all a possible subject for a future post, so I’ll get back on topic.

3)  The Internet/Youtube PSAs are good, but the celebrity aspect of it is problematic. There’s a bit of: “Oh, you’re _______, a superstar of stage and screen, obviously you are correct!”

The Hilary Duff spot is not that bad because compared to other pop starlets her age (Lindsey Lohan, the Olsen Twins) she’s actually a good role model. While others went crazy she put out a decent third album (love ”Play With Fire”) and has been in some quasi-independent movies, like War, Inc. I’d listen to her and I suspect other people might too.

However, there’s also one with Wanda Sykes, and well– as much as I agree with her on a lot of things– she is not the first person I would chose to speak out against offensive language.

4) The idea of language and how words are perceived is the major crux of any debate and discussion about how effective this campaign and other anti-bullying initiatives are. One of the major arguments about using ‘gay = bad’ come down to the definition.

 ”It doesn’t mean that anymore or it doesn’t mean that when I say it.”

GLSEN tries to combat with other posters for definitions of “gay” “faggot” ”dyke” with their old definitions and contemporary definitions. The site also has a cute little “Say What?” Adobe Flash thing that has other words included along with their definitions. (Cougar is included for some strange reason.) 

However there is some truth to the argument, as words do change over time. Slang goes out and back into style.  The best one can do to combat this argument is to convince the person that most people define the word gay as: someone, usually a male, who is homosexual.

 Which leads to the argument about intent:

“I’m not actually talking about gay people when I say that.”

This is an eaiser idea to discuss. One simply needs to ask: ”How are other people supposed to know that?” This is really a discussion about clear communication. No everyone is privy to the all of the context of behind your statements, so they might take you at face value. So if you if you tend to associate the word ’gay’ with things you dislike (and thus are bad) people might think your a bit of a homophobe. (Just a bit.)  This line of discussion might even lead people to ask themselves why they describe things as gay.

This also answers the question of “Why do _____ people get to use _____ word?” When gay people use ‘gay,’ ‘lesbo,’  ‘queer’ and ‘fag’ it is generally assumed that they insulting each other ironically or even using it as a compliment. The same goes for racial epithets

However, I’ve also heard the argument that, “Words only hurt if you give them power.” This seems to be ignoring the power of words especially ones with history behind them, but I’ve also seen it as an excuse someone will use when called out on their behavior.

This is where I realized one of the other major problems. GLSEN seems to assume is that people do not mean to insult GLBTQ people or people in general.

5) They forget one thing: some people are just jerks. They exist to provoke a reaction. Growing up, I knew that the bullies won when you got an adult. They won when you told them to knock it off. When SSJMasterCheif6795 calls you a ‘girly homo queer’ (amongst other things, and with horrible spelling) over X-Box Live, he is doing it to get you angry.

The fine webcomic duo at Penny Arcade explain it in one of their recent strips:

(Gabe and Tycho also note that the way the  Internet is structured is the reason why the Internet is full of people like this via John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.)

Now, Gabe and Tycho (the artist and writer respectively, not the characters) are not excusing the behavior but are merely explaining why GLSEN campaign is missing the mark with some of it’s intended audience.

The ever articulate, and occasionally loquacious, Tycho explains it better:

 They’re trying to regulate jerks by being jerks, but they’re not really jerks, so they can’t carry it off. This is the danger of assuming that your opponent is anything like yourself. They need to give their actual hatred of this practice a voice, every moment they were compressed into some subset of themselves, every brutal act, every misshapen poem they were forced to write, and concentrate this into a fragmentary lozenge of spoken power.

No-one responds to this kind of diffuse scolding, least of all young men, least of all from strangers who present themselves as archwizards of prim speech and perfect morality. Bigots and stupid kids speak this way expressly to promulgate the root concepts or to provoke a reaction. Telling them to “knock it off,” as this campaign hilariously does, is like exposing your belly to these wolves.

So what is the solution for dealing with these people? Unfortunately you have to tough it out. Thankfully, you don’t have to tough it out alone, especially not nowadays. And that’s what GLSEN is there for. It’ll get better when you go to college (if you go) and better after that.

Right now, you just beat SSJMasterChief6795, and he’ll have to live with knowledge that he lost to one of them ‘queers’. Teabag him after, it’ll be funny.

There’s a reason why the birther movement is existing in a zombie-like state, mercilessly being mocked at first by liberal (and moderate) bloggers, then by the mainstream media and people who watch/read either.

Outside of the dubious arguements and evidence being put forth, that is.

On of the problems is to your left. The name of the lawyer / dentist / real estate agent that has been one of the faces of the movement to prove that President Obama is not a (natural born) citizen of the United States is Orly Taitz.

O RLY?

YA RLY.

NO WAI!

Yes, like the O RLY owl and other owls, on of the first off shoots of LOLcats. I am not explaining LOLcats because people my grandmother’s age know what they are. It is really to easy to make fun of.

And that’s what politicians, political parties and everyone else needs to understand. The Internet is a series of tubes deep ocean open to everyone with slightly different rules than polite society. If they’re a silly joke or picture, there will be multiple variations by the next day. More importantly: if you’re a public figure doing something hypocritical, heinous or just plain dumb, you will get caught.

The speed of Internet meme allows information and ideas to travel around the world in seconds.

But this is recent news, and we need to start with one of the earlier moments where one could point to and say, “The Internet is going to be intertwined tightly with politics from now on.”

The Macaca Moment (August 11, 2006). Without the Internet, some people at the event might be upset, and it might make the news. But unfortunately for the then Senator Allen, a certain site had debuted a year and half ago in 2005: Youtube.  He learned a very important lesson. If it’s caught on the Internet, it will travel quickly and it will stay there forever. The magic of Youtube probably cost Allen the senate race and a chance at even running in the 2008 GOP Presidental Nominee Primaries.

Now, a smart person would learn from the fact that there is a big community on the internet, some already involved in politics or that are at least political ‘junkies’, ready to be organized. By, say, a former community organizer. Say, I don’t know, an Illinois Senator? Mmm… perhaps one planning on running for President–

Look, basically, what I’m saying is that My.BarackObama.com was a great idea. It basically gave people who wanted to help out in the campaign a database, resources and way to keep in contact with others. He reached out to people, 19 to 29-year-olds especially, through various social networking sites like Facebook.

The GOP unfortunately either lagged behind on hopping on the Internet train or went, “Facebook, moar lik fakebook!” Even worse, is that the party has not seemed to learn from Allen’s mistake. Example: Current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

Thank you, Rachel Maddow.

Maddow and guest Melissa Harriss-Racewell understand that people, especially young people who make up a large population of those who use the Internet the most, can basically smell authenticity. (They can tell from some pixels and seeing a few [photo]shops in their time.) Internet memes, for the most part, grow organically.  And if something is not completely authentic, the culture of the internet at least appreciates transparency. So, if a person or an advertising firm is able to create a meme able to survive the onslaught of the interwebs, most people don’t care if it’s done well enough, hence viral marketing.

Steele does not seem to get this and that is why he’s using hip-hop slang from the 1990’s.

I do believe that Mr. Steele just got told right there.

The fact that many Republicans in the party think that all of Barack Obama’s success was from people my age thinking that he was going to be doing 100% of what he promised or–even worse– that he was so hip and down with it, probably means they don’t think much of our generation or of our intelligence. Personally, I was far more impressed of how well done the marketing was, and that was it was presented as such, not being hidden by platitudes. I was happy that Obama was at least paying attention to my generations actual culture and needs, which was more than some other candidates were giving me.

I also chose Rachel Maddow clips for a reason. She’s liked by a lot of people, and she’s basically the majority of the Internet (or at least a lot of LiveJournal communities) in human form. She’s (or at least the correspondents on her show) are up-to-date with current news and pop culture. She’s snarky as a hell for her liberal viewers, but not enough to turn moderate viewers off as well. Snark (sarcastic commentary) is the backbone of the Internet communication and she wields it like a sword as she uncovers truth. She’s a pundit but she actually does some journalism.

The best example of the importance of being in the know is this clip about the tea0bagging movement where Maddow and founding Wonkette editor, Ana Marie Cox make as many dirty jokes as they can just by repeating a word.

Oh, people knew what they were trying to do with the tea parties. Although, the Boston Tea Party had very little to do with tea bags, it was about taxes– or to put it accurately: taxation with(out) representation. But, tea-bagging is also a sexual term. (I am not explaining the term. I will curse a bit on this blog, but even I have my limits.) It might have payed off to look in to that before hand.

Looked into the definition, you weirdos.

Part of being politically savvy now  is just knowing that it pays off know what’s hip and what the kids are into nowadays, instead of shooing them off you’re lawn. But it requires a bit more depth than just repeating something and trying to co-opt it. There’s a reason why the Daily Show and the Colbert Report work and the Half-Hour News Hour bombed heavily.

Another thing is understanding that while Big Brother might be out there and watching us, we the people have video on their cell phones now and Youtube, Google and blogs are free. (So, if you– I don’t know– plan on astroturfing and dumb enough to leave a e-paper trail, you might get caught.)

Knowing how information travels and recieved is key. You have to understand youth/internet culture and how things are communicated amongst peers to understand how to connect as some one outside the immediate grouping. Sometimes it’s by text. Other times it is by video. There’s also by song.

Shorty on the mic?

Look, I like Jake Gyllenhaal. I have never actually seen a full movie with him in it, but that’s besides the point.

But scroll between the face and the title a bit, and you can see where the problem might be. Despite the the copious amount of Photoshop shading, Mr. Gyllenhaal only looks vaguely Iranian, Afghani or part of any modern-day culture born out of the Persian empire– if you squint your eyes.

For many people, including those of the culture being portrayed in the movie, having a Caucasian person portray a person of a different ethnicity is annoying, frustrating but also unsurprising considering that Hollywood has a long history of ”ethnic impersonation” especially through yellow/black-face and the slightly less common brown/red-face. Disney has similar problems with POC characters in their animated features  (Look at the difference between Aladdin and Jafar for example).

It’s all a matter of accurate representation.

Now, I don’t think people are asking the movie to stay truthful to the game. I mean, game (and comic book) movies take some plot restructuring in order to translate to the screen. The game itself also has some problems with representation as well, as elements of Arabic culture get mixed in with the ancient Persian culture. However, at least The Prince (who remains nameless in the game) looks somewhat Persian.

Now, it’s very easy to understand why movie makers put Caucasian actors in roles portraying POC characters: money. Big names draw in people and due to a history of racism (that we’re slowly overcoming) the majority of the big names are going to be white. That’s the other factor that is going on here: jobs that could potentially go to struggling actors are going to actors that probably could live off of their earnings if they stopped working for the rest of their life.

So, you might be wondering what actor could have been cast instead of Jake. Well, in reading about the casting, a commenter on one site presented this actor: David K. Zandi. He’s only had small roles in major movies (MIB 2 and Marci X) and was almost Darius in Alexander, but this could have been his breakout role. Also, as a member of the Iranian royal family, he can trace his lineage to the Zand dynasty of  Persian Empire (the last to rule.)  It’s almost as if they could had a “Persian Prince” to play the Prince of Persia. That and scruff  him a bit and he’d look like the Prince in the game.

It could be worse:  see Ron Schneider in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry which was offensive and dumb all around for it’s sexism, racism and homophobic humor. But things also could be better.

In the case of the Prince of Persia, it is very easy to point out and say “Why not cast someone from the region you’re trying to portray?”

Going from animated to live, such as with the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, is slightly more complicated but no less frustrating.

The people at Racebending cover this much better than I can in a blog post, but I’m going to attempt at summarize the situation as a fan of the series because it was something of a successful attempt by Nickelodeon of expanding the horizons of their young viewers to the existence of other cultures. Avatar is heavily influenced by Asian (East, South and North) & Inuit culture. Obviously, the show is fantasy based but you’d be hard pressed to find the analogues to  real world peoples and their culture.

It may be hard to see from the picture, so I’d check the Avatar wiki for a better view of the characters and the description of the world of Avatar. Aang, the hero, who is the last of the Air Nomads who based off of Shaolin and Tibetan culture, the Water Tribe characters who are based off of Inuit / North Asian cultures, the Earth Kingdom members are inspired by Chinese culture and the Fire Nationis based off of Japanese cultures and the various cultures of Pacific Island countries. Aang has the lightest skin tone out of the group, but with the rest of the characters, it would be hard to present them as Caucasian.

Noah Ringer, left, as Aang doesn’t look awful. However, it wouldn’t have been too hard too find a good child actor who looks closer. It’s the rest of the casting that has made major fans more upset. Sokka and Katara are being played by white actors (to see the difference look at the main picture and then scroll down to the movie picture, it’s quite obvious.) Members of the Fire Nation have it better and worse. The Fire Nation has apparently moved to Middle Eastern and Indian influences with Zuko being played by Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionare fame and Admiral Zhao being played by Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show. This means that the only POC characters in the film are the antagonists.

After this, some people might convinced that these casting choices were bad ideas, but would hard pressed to call it racist. However, denying people accurate representation of themselves and the culture is racist. Just because it isn’t obvious racism or it isn’t intentional doesn’t it any less racist. People can do racist things and not be automatically labeled or considered capital “R” racist. Usually, that accusation is reserved for those who make a habit of repeating racist actions or supporting racist views. And honestly, it’s easier to learn to learn why certain things are racist than it is to run off and buy a white hood.

While the above holds true, Paramount was actively looking for white actors to play the lead roles. Racebending provides this as evidence. Yeah, that’s kind of discriminatory.

But for every “21“  there are  movies that people do it right. They’re usually lesser known movies have been better such as the Maori based Whale Rider  (adapted from the novel) or Smoke Signals where the majority of the actors and creators  were  Native-American/First Nation people.

Now outside of general fairness, why else should people push for authenticity (whether it be through casting or otherwise)? Well having appropriate cast or at least staff members (Avatar had consultants they referred to for many things) allows for the cultural elements of movies like Prince of Persia which are deeply immersed in the culture they are trying represent. So when people are entertained by something in movie or another medium and are curious to find about the culture or the mythology behind it. Without authenticity of having 300 (both the movie and the graphic novel being horribly inaccurate) represent the Spartans.

For example I’ve learned some Japanese and Japanese Mythology through the fighting game King of Fighters. I’ve learned about the Siege of Masada through X-Men spin off the Exiles (see here).

You don’t think that entertainment can educate people?  Well, at least for readers of my generation, I bet that they can all point to one place where they first learned some Spanish.

Kim sitting on Salome’s porch with the children.

A friend, fellow English Major and blogger, Kim Clune, is someone who has done a lot in her life. This makes for a lengthy resume, a varied life experience and some great stories to tell.  I’ll just start with roughly a year ago. Kim graduated with B.A. in English – summa cum laude, mind you.  Shortly after graduation, she packed for Have, Ghana to volunteer for a month, a trip she had been planning throughout her senior year.

I decided to interview Kim for many reasons:
    1) Interviewing someone is a great way to catch up!
    2) One of the reasons I started to write again in this blog is because of the Who Is the Native? posts inspired by my studies regarding post-colonialist topics. These posts help me to challenge my own, and perhaps others’, preconceptions of native/indigenous peoples around the world.
   3) To acknowledge the work of Kim and volunteers like her. (See here for a similar article written about student volunteers from my college.)
   4) A bit of cross-promotion. Just a little.

In this interview, Kim explains her reasons for volunteering, what she learned during her time in Ghana and her understanding of socio-political relationships between Ghana, the continent of Africa and the Western World.

(the ones who are mad to live / Alex T.)
Why volunteer?

Kim Clune:
After watching a PBS documentary, Columbia, The Coca-Cola Controversy, I began to research the horrid practices involved in making Coke. I learned that Coca-Cola consistently reaps the benefits of murder and torturous union busting at their Columbian bottling plant. It sucks 600,000 liters of water per day from the Indian ground while, according to NPR, farmers commit suicide because they are unable to honorably support their families. Coca-Cola also sells the product back to Indians containing a high rate of pesticides while offering contaminants as fertilizer.

On a hot summer day in 2007, when my thirst was peaked at an outdoor concert, I watched attendees toss half consumed beverages with no regard to where they came from or at what cost. I thought of the villagers drinking rain from gutters on Free Speech TV or drinking Coke, a beverage with no healthful benefits, because the local water isn’t safe.

Since our culture won’t break its addiction to fetish commodities like Coke and pays no heed to the fact that our purchases have the power to do harm, I decided I could at least be accountable for my own behavior. It was at that previously mentioned concert when I turned to my husband and said, “I want to go to Africa. I need to dig a well.”

Why travel?

Many people are willing to concern themselves with issues close to home, and I certainly count myself among them. To reach beyond our borders is simply not as common and yet we all need to consider the hunger, thirst and wages of every world citizen. When we stop caring for a nation’s people, they fall prey to exploitation and corporate greed which simultaneously takes jobs from Americans. This serves nobody well. We must become global citizens in order to work together on this ever shrinking planet.

Did you work with any organization in planning this trip?

It was important for me to team with an organization respectful of cultural preservation while empowering people to help themselves. Village Volunteers, a Seattle based non-profit, provided everything I was looking for and more. Our philosophies gelled wonderfully, philosophies best demonstrated in a short film called They Come in the Name of Helping by Peter Brock. I highly recommend this to anybody involved in cross-cultural work.

Why Have, Ghana? 
 
I wanted to team with people of another culture in order to empower them. My goals were to seek no personal gain but for denouncement of the negative cultural aspects I was born into. African resources have been ravaged throughout history, a practice that continues to this day. The ever illusive blood diamond market and paying below standard prices for gold are just some of the ways Africans are still exploited, so I wanted to start there.

Village Volunteers serves village programs in Ghana and Kenya. My first choice was Kenya, a country in greater need. Tragically, at the time I needed to purchase airfare, Kenya’s stolen presidential election stirred horrific civil unrest. I waited as long as I could with the hope that Kenya would stabilize quickly. Although this did eventually happen, the violence lasted several months and took place near where I planned to stay. My trip simply wasn’t meant to be. I signed on for Ghana at the last possible moment.
  
Did you have any goals in volunteering? 
 
In Kenya, since water filtration projects were already underway, I had decided to work on the Memory Box Project. I was to work one-on-one with a family head suffering from HIV/AIDS, preparing them and their children for the unthinkable end. The idea is to preserve family history, photographs, voice recordings and parental advice, the things that are often lost when a child is orphaned in Kenya. I still hope to do this one day.

In Ghana, HIV/AIDS is not as prevalent, nor does it carry the stigma it does in Kenya. Family support is far more common and the focus of the Memory Box Project does not transfer as well. Because of this, it was unclear where I would be needed most. I remained open to opportunity, letting the needs of the community determine my placement while keeping my personal goals small.

What was the process like in preparing to travel? 
 
For the year leading up to my departure for Kenya, I studied the culture, followed the politics, sat in on an African literature class, learned a bit of the language and planned for my program of choice.

In the one short month prior to my new destination of Ghana, I learned a bit of Ewe (ay’-way), the local dialect in Have (Hah’-vey) and what was considered polite in their culture. I practiced never touching food with my left hand and placed my left hand under my right elbow when shaking the hand of an elder or chief. I gathered lesson plans for several grades and educated myself on organic farming, worm composting and environmental preservation. Coordinating with my family and friends, we collectively supplied donations for the clinic, farm and school (you can watch the children receive their gifts), I delivered a total of 140 pounds of items in two giant bags – including my clothes, which were to be donated when I departed. Of course, there was also the bureaucratic preparation: applying for a visa, registering with the embassy and renewing my passport.

Salome and her sister-in-law Grace explain the drying process of Moringa tea.

How were you received by the townspeople/villagers?

From the moment I set foot in Have, I was greeted warmly by Emmanuel, a prominent family man in the village who introduced me to his mother, wife, sister, children, nieces and nephews. All cheered “Weizo!” or “You are welcome!” with warm smiles and added hugs.

An hour after my arrival, I had unpacked, changed into work clothes and went to offer my help at the Moringa Tea House run by Emmanuel’s family. I was told later by his wife Salomé that, “Your effort earned you a great deal of respect. Volunteers typically sleep their first day. You are a good worker.”

I didn’t win everybody over so easily. Salomé instantly took me under her wing calling me “sister,” but the younger women at the tea house initially chided me in Ewe for my lack of earrings, a clear sign of distinction between boys and girls at birth. According to their jests, I was deeply confused about my gender. Once I understood the source of their laughter and joined in, we all shared a terrific joke that spanned both cultures. From then on, the young women quickly followed Salomé’s lead, accepting me and making me feel welcome.

Was there anything that out right surprised you? Anything seem completely foreign to you? Anything seem very familiar to you?

Kofi learns to paint.

Surprisingly foreign was the sight of elementary students, not 3 feet tall, giggling their way down the school path carrying logs spanning 2 feet long and 6 inches across – on their heads. Once, a boy about seven passed me holding a soccer ball under one arm, a steel bowl on his head and a machete in the other hand. Children with machetes were not a rarity. Adults often sent young children to clear overgrown paths. When I taught 15 kids to paint, a knife lay among the paint brushes. I was through feeling protective by that point. Children have the capacity to gain a healthy respect for dangerous objects when they are part of everyday life.

As for familiarity, Have reminded me of my childhood. I grew up on the eastern shores of Lake Erie when the beaches were still wild and community bonfires ruled the night. It was a cottage town where accommodations resembled summer camp. Streets were paved in dust and stone. Lawns weren’t always mowed, trash was burned in a barrel and well worn paths led from one house to another. Dust and sand would layer upon one’s skin mixed with the sweet scent of a BBQ or burning driftwood as we sat on porches laughing and sharing conversations well into the night. Experiencing these things again felt like home.

Did you ever feel that you were being invasive, even when trying to introduce positive changes to the village (like recycling)?

I found it nearly impossible to be invasive as long as I actively observed what was expected. Near the end of my stay, Denise (another volunteer) and I were invited to the palace to meet the regional chiefs during a special ceremony held in our honor. We were invited to speak traditionally through an interpreter, although all the chiefs did speak English, and to offer insight into what might be beneficial to their area.

We spoke a great deal about the dangers of plastics, whether heated for food, burned in trash heaps or left strewn about the village, particularly since water comes in plastic bags and is preferred over boiled water. My suggestion of collecting and recycling the water bags to plant seedlings or to shred for packing seemed well received. Denise, a nutritionist, suggested a return to the village’s own healthy, homegrown crops rather than processed food which was, in Ghana, a symbol of wealth. The chiefs found this both observant and funny. They eventually dropped the formality of using an interpreter and spoke with us directly, asking a great deal of questions. I felt that the interaction went respectfully well on all sides.

On the other hand, a group of raucous volunteers in their twenties created quite a stir at the nearby orphanage by demanding their own rooms, baring their behinds in pubic, dropping the F-bomb in front of the orphans and drinking every night in town. Seeing this firsthand both angered and embarrassed me, but it also inspired me to better demonstrate that not all Americans are so disrespectful.

What are some of the things you learned about the specific area you were in?

The Volta Region is filled with beautiful treasures such as Volta Lake, the largest manmade body of water whose dam supplies all of Ghana’s electricity, and the sacred Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary where monkeys come from the forest to eat bananas out of your hands. Wli Waterfall is the highest in West Africa and is said to run stronger when more people are at the bottom making noise. The village of Amedzofe is the highest human habitat just below the peak of Gemi Mountain and the views from the top are breathtaking. Most beautiful is the strong sense of community. It can be seen day to day or at festivals like Agadevi, a village-wide celebration in June commemorating Have’s major 1933 landslide which sent boulders down Weto Mountain into a local school yard. Chiefs and villagers annually come together to thank the powers that be for saving the lives of people in the valley.

These jewels require preservation and villagers are working to do so. Environmental DevelopmentYouth Movement, or EDYM Village is the organic farm where I spent most of my days planting seedlings to reforest farmland. Here they educate the community about best farming practices and, if a farmer lives on the Weto mountainside, they teach him bee keeping or give him fruit trees to offer an alternate source of income other than burning the forest to plant crops of maize.  
 
How would you describe the Western World’s relationship to the place where you volunteered?

I believe the Western world sees Ghana as a bastion of hope in Africa, both in economic development and social stability as compared with Darfur or Sudan. This Western viewpoint is precarious though, much in the way Kenya was seen prior to the post election violence of 2007. Once Kenyans felt they had no voice and began warring in the streets, the media fell back on terms like “tribal warfare” while ignoring the complex context of political land theft and oppression. The news coverage then was very different than that of the post election violence in Tehran this year. The Western world prefers stereotypes because they are easy. Ghana looks like Western society in many ways and that makes it a favorable place. 

Have’s RC Primary School is in dire need of reconstruction.

Did your education help you to understand some of the complexities of the socio-political situations going on around you? (Heaven knows we spent a lot of time on post-colonialism studies as English majors.)

But of course. Please note that, although I now work for Village Volunteers, my opinion is my own and not necessarily a reflection of the organization’s position.

It pained me to see what I believe is colonization through Christianity. There have been so many missions established in Ghana over the years that a mass conversion (90% of the country) has demonized many of the traditional beliefs. Villagers often chastise the handful of Fetish Priests who continue to practice at traditional altars. Social schisms also exist between the many types of Christianity observed. I found this divisiveness disturbing as I witnessed the cultural price paid for economic assistance.

I am not speaking ill of Christians, mind you. Practicing Christianity creates a sense of community and extended family when practiced locally, but this practice is very different from that of spreading a single belief throughout the world. In the case of missions, Christians see the effects of their efforts through a one-way lens. To them, Ghana looks like religious progress as deemed by their own heroic goals. They come to save Ghanaians from themselves. Sadly, a belief claiming that all others are wrong, one with a strong economic structure in place to further its own cause, can have no other effect than the cultural erasure it has had in Ghana. Essentially, the Christian world has all too often said that Ghanaians were not good enough prior to conversion and Ghanaians believed. To me, this is not respectful empowerment.

Do you think that the African continent is viewed a certain way by the western world? (Perhaps as very homogenous, a primitive starving country if one were to go by some commercials…)

I suspect that social illusions about Africans are not necessarily formed by celebrity adoptions but that these adoptions may bring to mind racial stereotypes, particular those of African or even African American women. Rather than seeing African children in need born of African parents in need within the context of overarching oppression, as if oppression no longer exists, many Westerners harbor thoughts about diseased or uncaring mothers giving up their children or irresponsible women having rampant sexual relationships. Studies show that these same thoughts surround black women on welfare in the US, although statistics show that white women on welfare far outnumber blacks without bearing the same stereotypes. (Read more on this here.) I would hope that one might recognize the racial reasoning behind such criticism.

Do you still keep in contact with those from the village?

Oh yes! Salome and I became very close, spending every day together as I ate with her family and played with her children. It took months before I could talk to her on the phone without tearing up. I still keep in touch with her and others by phone, letters, photographs and email. Some of the younger boys frequent Facebook when they can from a neighboring village with internet access.

Gunadiish, the In-Country Coordinator during my stay, was also incredibly generous and kind. He ensured my safety, arranged my transport between excursions and became my friend. Sadly, after serving the young, rude volunteers I mentioned earlier, Gunadiish had taken a great deal of verbal abuse and considered quitting his job. When I returned to the US, my husband and I pooled resources with many other appreciative volunteers to fly Gunadiish to America. We picked him up at JFK and hosted him the week before Christmas, taking him from a cold and icy Niagara Falls through the political realm of Albany to the bright lights and busy streets of Times Square. From there he went on to NJ, DC, OR, IL, CA and WA. It truly made for an amazing cultural exchange, especially for somebody who has only ever been to Ghana, Kenya and Sierra Leone.

To read more about Kim’s experiences in Ghana, visit CultureTrek.

(This interview was edited by Alex Tunney and Kim Clune.)

The Peeps are originally from Newburgh, not Albany, but who cares since it’s close enough to anyone from LI, NYC or oustide of New York.

They’re the boys from Newburgh. The band wears their influences on their sleeve– The Clash being a major one– and why not? It’s the Clash!  They’re a band that after the show, and what a damn good show, is looking for the after party if they aren’t hosting it themselves. By the end of the night, you’ll know Byron, Jonny, Adrian and Teddy.

If you’re still sober.

I got to know the Peeps roughly around Fall 2005, encountering Jonny first (as mentioned in the Caleb Lionheart post) and eventually the rest of the band my freshman year in college. I already thought that Jonny was a pretty cool guy, so when he said the band he was playing in was in Albany, I figured why not? 

And it awesome.

I mean this is what the band is like on a regular basis:

I don’t remember which show it was, perhaps the one on campus with Cordero and Importante.

Not only did the guys play a good show, they had shirts and buttons ready to buy. These guys were prepared, and I was impressed. (Fun fact: Byron and Teddy are both talented graphic designers. There’s a reason I still have the band’s t-shirts.)

Some time later on, I got a copy of their first album: No Chochas, Just Warriors. (You look it up what chochas means), It’s pretty much 18– no frills– punk rock songs. You have the opening  “Let’s Go Crazy,”  “Wasted” and the closing song “I Wanna Be a Peep” all greats songs that always had the audience singing/shouting along. Honestly, a lot of the songs on the albums are great.

I would talk about the first album more, but it’s like talking about the Beatles with Pete Best in the band. The Peeps’ original guitarist Lechuza and the band went their separate ways over artistic differences. If you ever able find a copy of No Chochas, 1) save it, because these guys will be big and 2) you’ll be able to tell the difference between Lechuza-era and Teddy-era Peeps.

(There’s a brief period where the band was a trio working on the No Good Kids- EP, such as St. Rose’s Rose Rock 2008, see left.)

Three years after the previous LP, with the No Good Kids in between, The Peeps came out with Para Todas las Noches! (or For All the Nights) and you can hear how the sound has changed. While their first album is something to be proud of, the sound is a lot cleaner and the choice to have Byron on lead vocals was something that the band probably needed to do. Where as the previous album was full of rapid fire songs, most of which don’t hit past the three or four minute mark (in true punk fashion), you can tell the band took time to construct each song. Don’t worry, the band getting older hasn’t softened their edges.

Para Todas las Noches! kicks right off with “Nocturnal,” a song where the speaker explains that he only really lives at night, as in that’s he not going to be around for any real relationship. “Murder on Broadway” continues on with the speaker explaining how he ended up dead. In “Lucia,” the title character, falls for the speaker not realizing he thought they were a one-night-stand. The Spanish guitar throughout is a nice touch that doesn’t seem out of place, and similar flourishes interwoven throught out the L.P., which should serve as no suprise for a band that calls themselves salsa-punk.

There’s really three things being talked about on in the album: Girls, partying and being on the run, the last being hinted vaguely or through metaphor. The next song, “Count Me Out” is a good example, a song about the end of relationship using the end of a battle as conceit. The band also tends to tell stories some definite fiction and some that have probably happened. The bluring between the lines gives the album something of an urban myth/story collection quality to it.

The next two songs serve as sort of an interlude for the album. “Musketeers II” has the Peeps telling a story of guy on the run from the police and the lovestruck girl who follows after. The end of the song, you can see some of the band’s humor as they added a clip of Jonny, sped-up, saying:

Why ruin a party? Why do it? Why do you have to be the dude that goes to far? Why?

Which, I swear to god, I’ve heard him say a party in Albany before. It’s one of the little things the band gives the people who’ve been with them awhile. Following up is “Stubborn Few,” an acoustic number about letting yourself be vulnerable.

The album charges right back up with “So You Want to Know Who…” which has the speaker on the run again, captured and then giving up names. The end of the songs is a definite homage to The Clash’s “Police on My Back.” “Farewell” has the speaker leaving town to pursue better things. “Money Makers” has Adrian on lead vocals, a story about lost money and the problems that come with it.

The last three songs help the album close out with some high energy. “Young Guns” spells out the bands’ attitude: Live fast, die young. “Good Night,” the purposely ironic titled song details a night gone bad. After a cell phone jingle and Adrian saying “Ui Mompis!” (a trademark phrase) “Final Chapters” begins. The song is all about the band, what being in the band has meant for the members, as friends and how they’ll never stop.

And they haven’t.

The band is already working on more music. They also plan on releasing the Last Cavaliers - EP sometime this year featuring the single ”The Sun” (video below). 

And after Tuesday’s show in Brooklyn (Tomorrow @ Club Europa), the band is heading for Colombia on tour.

Like most good punk bands, describing the music helps you to understand a bit about the band, but live shows are where you get to know band really. Between the banter amongst themselves, the interaction with the crowd and parties that always happen after it’s obvious The Peeps are a band you follow if you like having fun.

Ui Mompies, It’s
The Peeps!
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