And It's Official!

TV on the Radio's Dear Science

Best Album of the Year!!!

at least according to the AV Club (first among many)

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/the_best_music_of_2008/4

Movies are only interesting when you're watching and discussing them, not when you have to write large papers over them. I've had just about enough of this, and I've barely done any work. I still have a couple hours to get this mess done though. And a couple days after that...haha.

But anyways, I'd much much much rather be watching Last Life in the Universe, 2046, and Oldboy than writing this stupid paper. Every time I heard "The Christmas Song" I think of 2046 and then I think of the Slate article that named it one of the best "Alternative Christmas" movies. It is quite enjoyable. Oh twell, I always have Christmas break.

I might snow here in Waco tonight. If it does, I'll be quite the happy little camper. I will also be freezing my bum off outside, but it's all good.

But it's now time to get back to my essay. Au revior!

1st Dead Day

Not happy at all. Didn't get to sleep until 5. Woke up at 9:45. Still have studying and writing to do.

But in other news, I would like to answer Hey Rapture's question of what I want to do before I turn 20. I would like to write something thoughtful, meaningful, intelligent, and provocative before I turn 20. Not a story, or a screenplay, or anything monumental. Even just an philosophical or political essay would be fine. I have ideas mulling around in my head, so one day...before I'm 20.

OJ Simpson

So, OJ Simpson was sentenced to "at least 15 years" today. An interesting ending to a chapter in American pop culture that started in a White Bronco 14 years ago. Admittedly though, I almost wanted to see him go free and just prove that no law can hold OJ Simpson. But unfortunately, Johnny Cochran was not here to defend Mr. Simpson.

But my question is, "How will the prison population react to having him in their midst." I ask this because there's a lot of people who believe that Mr. Simpson was guilty and unjustly got off for murder 13 years ago. Are those people in prison? Do they care that the justice system has finally caught up with Mr. Simpson?

Mr. Simpson is eligible for parole in 9 years. Will he make it to his parole hearing?

Beats: and the Filthy Biters Who Jack Them

I would like to discuss beat theft today.

Please excuse all the videos. I didn't know any other way to demonstrate my point...

There is an interesting paradox within Hip Hop that goes undiscussed. This paradox is a difference between sampling and stealing. At the heart of Hip Hop, you find that many songs in the genre are made from parts of other songs. This is very prevalent. But this I would not consider theft. It is not theft because it does not claim to have created the song it is sampling, instead just using it in the creation of another work of music. This is similar to citing a source in a paper. But, also within Hip Hop is the idea of "beat theft." This would in fact be considered theft. Why? Because the producer is trying to pass off another person's work as their own. I will cite DJ Khaled's song "Holla at Me" as a wholesale theft of Afrika Bambaata's song "Looking for the Perfect Beat." Why is this theft? Because although the song is fairly well known to die-hard Hip Hop fans, the average fan, whom DJ Khaled is targeting, does not know this song ever existed, and Khaled is attempting to pass off the spectacular beat as his own.

Now, beat theft does not intrinsicly occur when the same sample is used. I present MF Doom's "Anti-Matter" and Nas' "You Can't Stop Us Now" as evidence.




Although these two songs share the same sample, even the sound of the sample is different. Nas' is clearer, as if a band came in a redid the song. MF Doom's has that slight crackle to tell you it was taken straight from the record.

I know present the reason I bring this to your attention today.





These two songs take from the same source: Na Boca Do Sol by Arthur Verocai



Note that the two parts of both samples are not close to each other. One sample occurs at the very beginning and the other at the end of the verse/chorus(?). This adds to the idea that 9th Wonder (the "producer" of the second song) stole the beat from MF Doom, first beat. Also, the only thing that actually seperates the two beats from each other is bars. MF Doom's beat allows each part to go on for 4 bars, while the 9th Wonder beat goes for 2 each.

Point is, quit jacking beats!

Yay!

It's Tuesday again, my busiest day of the week, and I'm not doing any homework. Nothing new though, right? Currently listening to Boys Night Out's Trainwreck. It's pretty nice. It's a concept album and the such and I would recommend it to anyone. I'm planning on obtaining a couple new CDs soon. Ludacris' new album, Kanye West's new album, and something else I can't remember. But anyways...

On my agenda for the near future is developing an argument for the need of a secular political outlook. That has been my new mental obsession lately. I was thinking about Christianity and Capitalism, and it led to the idea of applying secularism to politics if one decides to cherry-pick the Bible for political positions. I might write a whole thing on it; it greatly interests me.

Anyways, I have about 40 minutes before I meet up with my new organization Coalition for Diversity. I'm wondering what it's going to be like... The President of Baylor Dems wanted me to join, and prefaced it with "I know you wanted to have a leadership position..." so I'm not sure what to expect.

Another thing is the Clinton Global Initiative Conference at UT Austin in February! I'm going to be applying to get into that. Not actually sure what it entails, but from what I've seen it looks like it is going to be a conference for fellow left-wingers to discuss policy and ideology for three days. What's better?

I leave with the recommendation that everyone read The Rebel by Albert Camus.

Also, The Christian vs. Atheist war on youtube scares me. Both sides are crazy.

I had a rough morning today. First, I didn't get in until 2 and didn't get to bed until 3. But of course, I didn't get to sleep until 4ish. Now, since it was Thursday, I had to get up at 8:30, so you can see why this would be a problem. The icing to the cake though was that my roommate put his alarm on snooze at least 10 times. So that kept me up for god knows how long. Needless to say, I slept in. I skipped my first class, Existentialism (my favorite class), but still attended my second class, Great Texts. I could have slept through Great Texts. Since it was such a rough morning, I ended up rolling into class just a bit late. But that didn't matter...AT ALL. We did not discuss the book I had failed to read. Instead, the entire class was devoted to explaining how women were different from men and how modernity makes everything sucky. Honestly.

Why is it that I hate that class at this point? Because my professor has the disturbing ability to ascend his soapbox every class. I wonder if it was less pronounced last semester, or if I just ignored it because I thought he was a very intelligent man. Either way, I can't wait for the end of this semester, and the end of my communication with him.

On another rantish point, I got into an argument/discussion with the other roommate over a groups means and goals. I hate when people say "They're getting you to talk about it, you're engaged in a dialogue on the subject, therefore they have achieved their goal." No, they haven't.

Case in point, I was discussing with my roommate why RANK (Raising Awareness in North Korea) decided to hold a worship service instead of something that would be actually effective (my thought). My roommate said that the worshipping and prayer would raise awareness, but I countered that they could do something that was actually effective, and did more than send up good vibes to God, like a money drive, volunteering to raise money, or something of that sort which would allow them toraise awareness and actually do something about it. My roommate then countered saying that they were trying to engage people in the idea of North Korea, which, by having this discussion, we were doing, therefore, they have achieved their goal.

No. What we were discussing was the methods they are using to engage their audience; an actual discussion of North Korea's human rights violations was never actually discussed. Therefore, their goal was not acomplished in us discussing them. Therefore, I submit that we can take this case and generalize it to a certain point and say that simply because a group has caused a discussion, it does not mean that the group has actually achieved its goals.