Italy was great, but we wore out our welcome. So we packed up the wagon and headed north to the Vaterland. Read along as we navigate the bergs and burgs of Germany and try to discover the soul of the country.
Jessica and I have started listening to a podcast called "Jordan Jesse Go" (or alternatively "Jordan/Jesse--GO!!"). It's produced by a couple of guys, Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn, and I believe they have a radio show called "The Sound of Young America" that may have some sort of national syndication.
"Jordan Jesse Go" is a free podcast that they put up on iTunes for subscription. Jessica found it on a fluke and we've been listening to it over the weekend. It's not bad and has it's moments. It's basically two guys riffing on miscellaneous pop-culture topics. By their own admission, their show is a "collection of distractions." They come off as a pair of late-20 hipsters who occasionally have some indie celebrity guest host.
However, I took a peek on the internets at what these "celebrity podcasters" look like and discovered this:
That's Jordan on the left, Jesse on the right.
I sent this picture to Jessica and her response deserved to be shared with the world:
H-S! Which one is which? They look so ridiculous. They pass themselves off as hipsters, but they are clearly bozos.
If you haven't seen the latest episode of Southpark, I recommend you get on over to Southpark Studios and watch the Fishsticks episode.
It's not the best one I've ever seen, but it does contain one of the greatest single one-line jokes of all time. And it has a fantastic Kanye West video at the end.
Also, a quick couple of shout outs to some fellow bloggers.
My friend Eric Y. has a annually updated blog that has a web comic on it. I don't know if it qualifies as a web comic per se, since he originally drew them back in the early nineties before the internet is what it is today. Nevertheless, he's since dug up these old strips and put them up on a blog of his. Take a look-- That Old Goat. My hope is that the surge of traffic from this megalith of a site will spur him onward to actually create some new content for the strip. For the record, I'd like to see one featuring the ghost of Natasha Richardson. You know, something light and topical.
Another friend of mine, Cory aka Bart B., has a couple of blogs out there. I'd like to draw your attention to his latest(?) one: Under the Muck. Cory's pretty good about keeping the updates fresh and content-packed. He writes about the bands that didn't quite make it in the biz. Acts that maybe had a hit here or there, but just didn't break on through to the national scene. Cory used to (still does, maybe) write for Pitchfork Media, which is a hipster music review vehicle, so he knows what he's talking about. Lots of the music over there isn't really my scene (which happens to be atonal acapella groups), but Cory makes it interesting and fun to read.
There are no new ideas. Nearly everything that you've seen, heard, or read has been done before. Let me illustrate my point--
You may or may not be familiar with the rapper T.I. I guess he's popular with the kids these days. I saw a story on CNN that he was arrested for a weapons possession charge just prior to attending a BET awards show. I guess he was trying to get his bodyguard to buy $12,000 worth of machine guns for him, since he was unable to buy them himself due to a previous drug charge. What?!? A rapper arrested for guns and drugs?? Way to break a stereotype, T.I. Anyway, I guess if the mainstream media makes your arrest national news, then you've "made it" in the business.
It turns out that T.I. has a popular song called "Live Your Life" featuring the lovely Rihanna singing the back-up hook. You may remember Rihanna from getting beat-up by her boyfriend about a month ago. Somehow, that was national news also. Anyway, I know that this song is popular because it's been playing over the speaker system at the local grocery store. Take a listen to the hook from this song on YouTube. Ok? Remember what that sounds like.
If this doesn't sound unnervingly familiar, then maybe you haven't been on the Internets very long. That hook is nearly identical to the "Numa Numa" guy's song. Remember him? Take a listen to refresh your memory:
So T.I. ripped off a fat internet star? Not quite. Turns out that Gary Brolsma (the fat kid in the video) just lifted this song from a Moldovan boy-pop group called O-Zone. For reals. But as if all this wasn't enough, you really have to take a look at the original video from this band. It's cringe-worthy enough to sit through the whole four minutes. They're singing on the wing of an airplane, for Christ's sake!
There you have it. A L.A. based American rapper gets famous by sampling an Internet YouTube star who in turn sampled a Moldovan pop band. So it goes...
