Some thoughts on the “Horrorcore” killings.

On September 17 of this year, a 20 year old “rapper” named Syko Sam decided to kill a family and a couple of his friends in a scene so gruesome that police won’t even describe it.

Every so often, some asshole commits some atrocity that draws attention to a certain genre of music favored by the sick asshole in question. In the fevered rush to action, there are invariably calls to ban/censor or otherwise castrate artistic freedoms in favor of preventing future catastrophes. Generally, cooler heads prevail and our First Amendment rights are preserved. Right now, the spotlight is on a genre of rap music called “horrorcore” that seems to be centered around graphic descriptions of violent acts. As usual people are quick to associate the artform with the crime. It’s a natural connection to make. Especially since Syko Sam rapped about committing this crime before he went through with it. Eventually though, this will all blow over, there will still be horrorcore rappers and society will not collapse. I’m OK with this…in principal.

Most of my life, I’ve been a fan of genres of music that are often targeted by censors and religious nuts. After all, I grew up in a time that gave us GG Allin, The Dwarves, Cannibal Corpse, church burning Norwegian black metal and numerous other musical acts with horrifically bad taste. For a while in the 80’s there was a huge scare about the rise of “Satanic” music. I was a huge fan of this style of music, and I still am. Most of it wasn’t Satanic at all. In fact one of the bands that was most often accused of being so, Iron Maiden, was probably more responsible for getting me enthused about world history and classic literature than any of my teachers were. I have had endless talks with parents, teachers and other authority figures where I have had to defend these musicians based on their artistic merits. This is not new. It happened before my time, and again with Rap, and again with Goth…and probably will continue with every passing generation.

So why does this case bother me so much? Is this just a knee-jerk reaction to the new crazy shit the kids are into these days? I feel like I’m in more of a rush to blame the music than the media is. Part of it is because I’ve spent so much of my life trying to convince people of the artistic merits of “extreme” music. Now along comes a group of jackasses whose whole genre is devoted to describing murders in detail, and the pleasure associated with committing the acts. I’m having a real hard time finding anything redeeming here. And yet…

Is this really any different than an updated Maxwell’s Silver Hammer? Should we have banned the Beatles after the Manson murders? Or check out these lyrics by a band that I love, Slayer, from the song Sex, Murder, Art (in part):

Shackled
My Princess
Dangling in distress
Here
To discipline
My sole purpose never ends
Bleeding
On Your knees
My satisfaction is what I need
The urge
To take my fist
And violate every orifice

You’re nothing
An object of animation
A subjective mannequin
Beaten into submission
Raping again and again

So yeah…there’s that. I guess the leap of faith that I was willing to take with Slayer is that they are simply responding to the horror in the world, and presenting it as shockingly as possible. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit, but to me it always seemed that the point was to take all of these topics (gathered mostly from actual news stories) and present them to people as if to say “this is the sorry state of the world, folks”. I felt that even when Tom Araya is singing in first person as infamous serial killer Ed Gein, that the point is not to celebrate his crimes, but rather to attempt to understand the mind of a killer in order to understand how something like this could happen. Slayer are artists. They have a Grammy.

I’m not sure that I’d take the same leap of faith with these so-called horrorcore artists. From the few albums that I’ve downloaded and listened to over the last several years (often in an attempt to understand some of my younger friends’ taste in music) I haven’t found much more than an ugly and ignorant indulgence in macabre fantasy. I don’t want to take away anyone’s right to do that, but you know…garbage in/garbage out. No one is ever going to give these douchebags a Grammy. Oh wait…they did…sort of. Three 6 Mafia (get it? three 6? 666? Satan!) got an Academy Award for a song they did for the Hustle and Flow soundtrack. To be fair though, the song itself was not in the horrorcore genre, neither was the soundtrack.

Extreme genres of music have a very specific appeal to individuals who are right on the edge of both society and sanity. Regardless of what the intent of the band is, a certain number of these idiots are going to do disgusting things to themselves or others – usually others. In spite of stereotypes to the contrary, I remain convinced that heavy metal is primarily a thinking person’s genre. At least that’s the artist intent. Say something about politics, the state of the world, society, human rights, dragons or wizards, and make it rock.

Horrorcore on the other hand invites, celebrates and revels in ignorance. It brings out the worst in these kids and encourages them to do “sick shit”. It practically dares them to commit these kinds of crimes in order to gain status among their peers. In this specific case, the record label seems to have been a major force that deliberately guided these kids toward this inevitable conclusion. I live in a town where this style of music is very popular with people in this age group (teens/early 20’s). I’ve been to the courthouse and have watched group after group of suspects come through with Insane Clown Posse tattoos and Twiztid t-shirts. For a while I was receiving incoherent death threats in mangled English as a result of a comment I’d posted on a friend’s MySpace page teasing her about having been a fan of ICP. The artists, labels and promoters seem to be pushing the idea that this behavior is the culture and lifestyle, something to identify with and be proud of. They’re not just saying “listen to this music, buy this record” any more. They’re saying “go out and do something shocking for the glory of the Family”.

What should we do about it? Absolutely nothing. Remember the Geraldo-manufactured neo-Nazi scare (right on the heels of the Geraldo-manufactured Satanism scare)? Neo-nazi bands have been making music for years. It’s every bit as violent and horrifying as horrorcore, but no one gives a shit because it’s just not cool to be a Nazi. We need to throw a little bit of subtle peer to peer campaigning at these kids to emphasize that being an ignorant waste of space douchebag isn’t cool. The rest will work itself out. We need to be a little more clever about it than the War on Drugs campaign though, otherwise we’ll all be chopped to pieces in our sleep.

Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what seems to be taking place. The Christian conservatives are screaming “Satan!” and are probably gearing up to burn a huge pile of records and CDs as we speak. This will, of course, only make horrorcore seem cooler, edgier and anti-establishment. I mean, you saw Footloose, right?

Check out these shining rays of hope: (And yes, I have seen Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years)

Qwest + XBox Live + Netflix + HD Streaming = FAIL

Qwest DSL has been shutting off my internet every time I initiate an HD steam in Netflix via XBox live.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Turn on XBox and log into XBox Live
2. Launch Netflix via XBox Live
3. Select an HD movie for streaming, eg. Superman II (Kneel before Zod!)
4. At this point Netflix determines your optimal speed. (Presented in HD! FTW!)
5. Error message comes up saying that it cannot play the movie. (OK…)
6. At this point, every computer in the house loses internet access!!! (WTF?!?!? Points STRONGLY toward Qwest, not XBox Live or Netflix.)
7. A few minutes later, internet access comes back.
8. Any time you repeat the process, all internet access in the home is lost after selecting an HD movie for streaming.
9. After repeating this several times, internet access WILL NOT come back on. Manual restart of router is required to restore internet access.

Qwest has some goddamn explaining to do.

Updates on life, work, love…

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog… It’s not for lack of events worth writing about, but rather a lack of things that feel comfortable sharing with a wider audience.

On the work side, I’m involved in the middle of a massively unethical outsourcing campaign. If I had any principles at all I would quit. But jobs aren’t easy to come by, and I’ve got a family to provide for now, excuses, excuses… We’re basically shipping a large number of jobs to India with essentially no regard for what this means to our customers. The usual lip service is being paid to how technically savvy these new Indian employees are, but the fact remains that I wouldn’t want to put anyone in my family through the experience of trying to speak with one of them. I can barely navigate a conversation myself, and I’m pretty well used to them by now. Not that they aren’t perfectly nice people over there, but they talk way too fast and are way too heavily accented…and did I mention that they’re starting from square 1 in terms of product knowledge? Meanwhile, we’re laying off tons of Americans with massive amounts of accumulated knowledge. If hard work mattered at all, they’d be keeping their jobs. All the folks I deal with on the US side go above and beyond on a daily basis. I’m somewhat disenfranchised with the American Dream at the moment. And what am I supposed to tell my girlfriend’s son when I talk to him about his school work? Is it even worth getting an education any more? We’re totally selling out the country’s intellectual future for pennies on the dollar and creating a service economy. It’s completely depressing. Help me Barack Obama, you’re my only hope.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a girlfriend now. And I’m still technically married, which is a complicated situation in itself, but it looks like everything is moving toward an amicable resolution and I’m happy for that. I really don’t want there to be any more turmoil and stress in that part of my life. Things at home are good. I’m getting things done. Getting bids on a new roof, completing projects around the house, establishing new routines, cooking more often, eating better, and fumbling my way through the new “dad” role as best I can. (I officiated a funeral for a rat the other day.) I’m not really one to overshare about this part of my life, but I just wanted to put a little something in here to say that I’m happy and doing well. Sometimes people assume the worst when I drop out of sight for a while, so I wanted to counter that.

I’m still waiting on my custom bass from Electrical Guitar Company. I’m seeing a lot of new instruments showing up in peoples’ MySpaces, so I know they’re cranking them out. I just hope that I am moving toward the head of the line. I sent them an order back in December of ‘08, and their usual turnaround is about 4 months from what I hear. Mine was a custom body shape, and required some special effort to get it all drafted and machined. I’m really excited to see the finished product, and also to be a part of the beginning of a new line of custom instruments.
In related news, I’ve been playing a lot with my band, Mico de Noche. We’re getting ready to record again and the new songs are really freaking heavy. I’ve been playing through my custom Verellen 4×12+18 cabinet and it smokes! I think I might have blown the tweeter though…I was worried that would happen. I need to talk to them about getting it replaced and/or upgraded with something more robust. Also, we just played a little tour down to Eugene and Arcata this past month. I felt pretty good about it. We don’t really have any draw, so we’re dependent on whatever local interest wanders in off the street. People who show up seem to enjoy the show and the comments after the sets have been overwhelmingly positive. I feel confident that if we could apply some marketing muscle, we could start to accumulate some fans. The music’s solid, original, and simple enough to get everyone headbanging.

Well, the boat’s pulling into the dock now, so I’d better sign off.

Reformulation blues.

If you haven’t eaten the foods of your childhood in a long time, say, since childhood, then you might be in for a shock the next time you reach for a time-honored classic.

Well-meaning do-gooders have reformulated many of your fondest foods into utter impostors, robbed of their former majesty. They’ve come along with things called “vitamins” and “minerals” and added them where they don’t belong. And everything is “calcium enriched”.
Remember Nestle Quik? It used to be a super-fine chocolate/sugar powder that dissolved fairly well in milk, provided you didn’t throw it in the glass first (common rookie mistake). The new Nestle Quik is granular, more sandy than powdery, and doesn’t dissolve nearly as well…never mind the awful taste. Barely chocolaty. Avoid it. Chocolate Malt Ovaltine, however, is just like you remember. No reformulation. Follow the directions! 4 heaping tablespoons! Skimp at your own peril.
Another victim: Cookie Crisp cereal. Cookie Crisp looks and tastes nothing like the original, which was sort of like Cap’n Crunch pressed into a flying saucer shape with lil’ tiny Chips Ahoy chips flecked all over the surface. Now it’s the color of whole wheat, has almost none of the original “cookie” flavor and let’s not even talk about the chocolate chips since they aren’t present in any meaningful way. During a recent sampling I also thought that I detected the flavor of those same vitamins and minerals. Why are these even added to children’s foods? They’re just a pathetic crutch for the lazy parent. C’mon people, they make vitamins that taste exactly like gummy bears now. No chalk. No grit. No weird pee smell. Just give those to your kids and leave the classics alone. Please?
Another classic that has stayed true to its original form: The Hostess Twinkie. I’ll be damned if the two-pack Twinkies don’t taste exactly like the ones that we used to have when I was a kid. In fact, they’re probably the same factory batch as the ones I had when I was a kid.

How to mount a Ubuntu drive in Windows

This is another one of those “pay it forward” type posts. I spent the better part of an hour researching/installing/uninstalling/reg-editing and generally banging my head against a wall trying to get my girlfriend’s Ubuntu drive to show up as a readable drive in Windows XP so she could migrate her personal files over. It was hard enough to even find a good discussion of the problem, much less a list of solutions. Once I found a list, I tried every half-assed application on it, to no avail. Finally, on one forum thread, a user posted a link to a solution that actually works and is completely painless.

http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/

Go there. Download. Install. Use the Ext2 Volume Manager to assign a drive letter and then browse the drive in Windows Explorer. Couldn’t be much easier than that. Anyway, enjoy.

One more quick plug: The drive was attached to the XP computer via the Newertechnology USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter, which I’ve plugged previously elsewhere. It’s the best $30 guarantee against future frustration you’ll ever find. Get one.

Michael Phelps: gold medalist, burner

So it seems that Mr. Michael “8 Gold Medals in Beijing” Phelps is a pot smoker. Some photos came out. A bong was involved. He’s already falling all over himself apologizing for his “irresponsible behavior”.
I hate to shine the cold light of reason on everyone’s knee-jerk emotional response, but could we please re-examine why we feel an apology is even necessary?

• People who smoke pot have low motivation. Response: 8 gold medals Beijing
• Smoking pot reduces your lung capacity. Response: 8 gold medals, 40 career gold, seven world records, in fricking swimming
• It’s irresponsible because he’s a role model. Response: 8 gold medals in Beijing, and the President did it too. How much further up the chain would you like me to go? God? He invented it. (Example cited for dramatic effect. Still atheist.)

I’m not saying that smoking pot will get you gold medals, but it certainly didn’t appear to hurt in this case. Can we just get over the hysteria and move on?

Another casualty of the war on drugs – everyone with a cold.

A little while ago, the government decided that you shouldn’t be able to buy pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) because it can be used in the production of methamphetamine. You can’t get it without consulting a pharmacist. At least not in my area.
Most cold medicine brands replaced pseudoephedrine with phenyephrine and kept right on trucking. The pills look basically the same, and the names are similar enough that most non-chemists probably didn’t notice or care. The claims of efficacy on the box didn’t change much either. They still carry phrases like “maximum strength” and “severe cold formula” or “sinus headache”.
So what’s the problem? Not much, really. Except that phenylephrine gets metabolized by your system before it can reach your sinuses, and is therefore no more effective than a placebo. (GlaxoSmithKline, your partner in irresponsible medication, disagrees.) Did you catch that? Because of the drug war, everyone who has a cold or sinus congestion has been taking placebo for the last couple years. Oh, by the way, phenylephrine also raises your blood pressure and needlessly taxes your liver for no measurable benefit. If you’re unlucky enough to need cold medicine outside of pharmacy hours, you should probably just take a good strong belt of Nyquil and sleep until you can get the real stuff.
Methamphetamine production has not ceased.

Barack Obama on secular government

This is an old video, but it’s worth viewing if you haven’t seen it already. It’s our President talking about religion and government, and why you shouldn’t mix the two. I’ve often joked that Obama is too smart to be a Christian, but in all seriousness this video does a good job of pointing out some of the nonsense inherent in the Bible. He explains in simple terms why it would be grossly irresponsible and impractical to even attempt to adhere to the letter of the scripture in private life, much less incorporate Biblical law into our government.
It really gets to the core of why I am so staunchly and outspokenly atheist.

Swissgear Pilot 20 Carry-On case + MacBook Pro 17″

I just wanted to post a quick note on my blog about this because I tried to Google it while I was in the store and couldn’t find an answer. Hopefully this helps someone else out there. A 17″ MacBook Pro…I dunno what you Mac geeks call ‘em – the one with the aluminum finish and slightly rounded corners, but not the fancy new aluminum block  body and glossy screen. Yeah, that one. It will fit into the laptop pouch of a Wenger Swissgear 20 Pilot Carry-On bag. Just barely. It’s a squeaker, but you can get the 17″ MBP in and out of this pouch without tearing or modifying the case. It’s a tight fit, and you might not be able to do it quickly while everyone on the plane is waiting for you to take your seat, but still…it works.

I will be traveling a lot for work soon, to exotic locales, and I wanted to be able to do it without checking luggage. The Pilot 20 should be an excellent option.

Cash is king. Citi fails.

After many, many years as a Citibank credit card customer, I elected to terminate my account today. As has been widely reported, Citibank decided to reward many of its loyal customers with huge rate increases. The real bitch of this is that it wasn’t done as a penalty for cardholders who were late on payments, it was applied across the board. I don’t even carry a balance on my Citi card. So this change wouldn’t have affected me in any way – at the moment. However, if at some point in the future I do need to use credit for a major purchase, I don’t want to be stuck with an account that has rates that are normally reserved for deadbeats. This is a blatant cash grab by Citi, and I find it disgusting. That’s why I terminated my business with them.
What really surprised me was the total lack of any sort of customer retention strategy on Citi’s part. I called to opt out of the rate increase and the whole process took about 3 minutes. There was no hold time at all, and there was no “let me transfer you to a specialist”. Just press 1 for English, then speak to a rep for about 45 seconds, and the account is closed. They didn’t even counteroffer with anything to help take the sting out of the rate increase. I was surprised. Anyone who has ever closed a credit card account has probably experienced the usual tactics where they try to throw you a bone to keep your business. Low balance transfer rate? No payments for 90 days? Nope. Nothing. Just “OK, Mr. Jihad, your account is now closed. You’ll receive a confirmation letter in 5-7 days. Kthxbai!”