Text 'O' for Obama

Yesterday, I received an email from the Obama campaign asking people to sign up receive a text message with the name of his vice presidential choice when he selects him. When I followed the link - what the hell? - there was no way to say I wanted to receive the VP text without also agreeing to receive other text messages from the campaign.

It's a good sign that his campaign recognizes the impact of texting and a text number database, but like the Win a Dinner with Obama campaign, it's cheesily bait-and-switch to dangle the prospect of finding out his choice for VP to get your digits.

This is Unfortunate

Recently, I received a press release about a "We Are the World"-like recording for post-Katrina New Orleans, "We Shall Not be Moved." Setting aside questions about the desirability of a post-K "We Are the World," recordings like this one give good intentions a bad name.

What to Do?

Recently, OffBeat was offered the opportunity to review the new B.G. album, but the reviewer was going to have to go to a preview party to hear the album. When I asked for a copy for the reviewer to hear using his or her usual reviewing process, I was told that wasn't an option, but that a private listening session could be set up at the Chopper City offices. That didn't seem like a significant improvement on the party; in either case, someone else controls how the reviewer hears the music, which has to affect the review, if subtly.

When I was told this was a security concern, I pointed out that I didn't appreciate being suspected with no cause. I was told I wasn't personally suspected, but that doesn't make it better. If the label suspects everybody and treats everybody as a potential bootlegger, that doesn't mean they're not being suspicious. I gather other hip-hop labels exercise similar control over advance listenings, but that doesn't make it better.

As of now, the story has ended more or less where I expected it to. OffBeat hasn't paid enough attention to hip-hop and B.G. in the past to have much leverage in this situation. I'm bummed we're not reviewing the CD, and though I know I'm fighting the right fight for reviewing and journalism, I also have the nagging doubt that, like the last people stubbornly using "indices" instead of "indexes," I've put my heels in to fight a lost fight.

Keep on Running

I've been trying to figure out how to talk about A-Trak's Nike-commissioned Running Man:Nike+Original Run. My first instinct is to be skeptical, but the 45-minute mix LCD Soundsystem did for this series was the logical follow-up to Sound of Silver , and A-Trak's an interesting choice as well. But I don't run if I'm not chased by dogs or cops, so I'm not in a position to talk about it in relation to its designated function.

Since I tend to listen to extended mixes when writing, I'll think of the album as Typing Man and evaluate accordingly. The first section is distracting, which from a musical perspective is a good thing, particularly when it settles in "Say Woah." The funk is a little martial, but it's appropriately relentless, and the gradual mutation of the song stays interesting. I never notice when Running Man moves into the second section, but at some point I realize I'm in a futuristic James Brown moment, with a "Get up" command emerging from behind a fat, fuzzy synth bassline punctuated by icy keyboard chords, scratches and pings. I can work pretty well during this section, though I'm entertained when I pay attention. I imagine the first section would get a runner running, but here's when you'd go into the zone.

At some point, things slow down and are defined by a keyboard melody that sounds like the solo in a Richard Marx song. This passage I never notice and type through easily. I'd like to think it's because I'm in the zone, but I suspect the section really just isn't that interesting. For the final five or so minutes, the energy picks up notably for a techno passage that would probably rock a full dance floor though it might not inspire people to rush it. I assume this is designed to motivate the tiring runner to gut out the last few minutes. Me - my attention bounces back and forth between it and my work in a good way.

Short take - if I ran, I'd probably lose my juice during the Richard Marx segment, and I wish this mix made a stronger statement, but since it's designed to be background music, I'm not sure it's fair to complain about the sections that are only that.

You Can't See Me

I'm in a coffee shop with four military police, all dressed in camouflage. They prompt two questions (without thinking hard): 1) Why are MPs wearing camouflage in New Orleans? and 2) Shouldn't urban camouflage look more like bricks or wood that needs a paint job?

A Looting Thought

While doing some research for a Katrina-related piece, I went back to the video for Juvenile's "Get Ya Hustle On." Much was made of the way it depicted three kids in Bush, Cheney and Nagin masks playing in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, but the image that caught me was that of an SUV with polished rims being pulled by three horses. Juvenile's rapping in front of another SUV, this one rolled on its side, while a limo is incapacitated with its back wheels of the ground as the storm surge blasted it on to a pile of junk.

On one hand, Juvenile brought a dose of realism to the video world, depicting the trashed trappings of the good life as seen in Puffy and Jay-Z videos. The horse-drawn SUV also drew attention to how deeply and successfully Cribs and other lifestyles of the rich and famous shows had taught people - particularly young African-American Males - what they needed to live the good life. SUV? Check, even if it doesn't run, and that's what we saw in the televised post-Katrina looting. Big screen to play Madden on? Check, even if there's no power. Serious basketball shoes? Check, even if you can't wear them when you're ass-deep in water. The water has to go down some time.

All of the finger-wagging at the time seemed incredibly hypocritical - sell the hell of the idea that these are things you should want, then act surprised when people with limited means take advantage of diminished security to get them. MTV's From G's to Gents includes a participant who has a pimped out car, but he has spent so much money on it that he's forced to live in it.

Again, we can tsk-tsk about priorities and values all we want, but that's being dishonest. When consumption has become such a crucial cultural signifier, we can't be surprised that those who are the most vulnerable choose to create the appearance that they're not by acquiring products outside their price range, whether by impoverishing themselves - From G's - or taking advantage of a disaster. At the same time, Juvenile's horse-drawn Escalade (I think) highlights the reality of those acquisitions.

The Value of a Sense of Humor

Andrea Mitchell's sparring match with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis underscores one of the fundamental differences between Barack Obama and the traditional Republican candidate. In the piece, there's footage of Obama contending that McCain camp is trying to scare Americans away from voting for him, but he does so with self-deprecating humor. Contrast that with Davis' relentless, strident dissembling. He's utterly humorless and combatative as he tries to construe Obama as negative and get away from raising the issue of arugula and MT-RX bars, baldfaced lying when he says that McCain's commercials repeatedly spell out his economic plan (in the "Celebrity" ad? Really?).

A sense of humor is a sign of intelligence, and attenuating his responses is obviously deliberate. By treating his own difference and McCain's attempts to scare the voters about it as if it's no big deal, he sends the message that it's not. On the other hand, Davis' fight-hard-then-fight-harder strategy treats everything as a matter of meteor-aimed-at-Manhattan urgency. When it's tied to obvious untruths, it becomes clear Republicans don't trust their candidate and are content to bully and confuse voters to reduce the election to a referendum on who you're more likely to have met at a PTA meeting or neighborhood barbecue. While Obama treats us like we're smart enough to understand the fear tactics, the McCain and Republican strategy assumes we're dumb enough to buy into their bluster or be confused enough by it to throw up our hands in disgust.