Blogging on Meds

Welcome to the first installment of What’s In Your NPR Bag?, a weekly column where we ask the fashionably green what the fuck they are carrying around in their canvas bag.

Fellow Mediciner Rachel Elder brought it to my attention that the proper name for this phenomena sweeping the nation and specifically Brooklyn was the NPR bag. I’ve noticed a massive spike in men carrying these bags, this can be attributed to several factors :

1. Perfect size for record shopping.

2. Says that you care about the environment but not in a hippie way, unless you have a yoga mat poking out.

3. Less “faggy” than a really corporate Murse® aimed at the metro / Details mag set but still nothing that a jock would carry chewing tobacco or energy drinks in.

4. Another surface to communicate your likes and dislikes, you’re a walking beacon for whatever you choose to promote or disrespect.

I hate even carrying a wallet or keys so I was more interested in what could be in a dude’s NPR bag. Call it coincidence but I ran into long time friend of Meds, Ethan Snell at small party in Brooklyn and picked his brain.

“My NPR bag? Ohhh my tote, yeah man fuck this one is brand new, my girlfriend screenprinted these for an indie craft fair and I just started carrying it a few days ago, it’s so convenient and of course I’m a huge fan of her design work so that’s a perk!”

Though the bag was brand new there was a dusting of Drum tobacco already lining the bottom where some pens, lighters and keys rested next to some freshly signed paperwork for a brand spanking new Condo on the park (co-signed by Dad, I peeked sorry!) Congrats though Ethan, a copy of the New Yorker, a few of those nasty free subway condoms, a Luna bar wrapper and an empty Kombucha bottle.

“Yeah I guess I’m ready for anything with bag” Ethan remarked “though I still need to get a few bare essentials in there, gum, iPod, The Believer and my journal, I’m a designer and I’m constantly inspired by my surroundings, you see so many interesting images and graphics in Brooklyn, in a bodega, a tag on a wall or even just some of the interesting looks you see in Williamsburg, it’s like a constant living breathing reference book so it’s essential to make notes in between brunch and happy hour!”

Thanks to Mr. Snell for letting me snoop around your NPR bag.

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From Heartworm :

We are proud to announce that Jonathan Shaw’s Narcisa is released today and is Heartworm #21. Narcisa is a 360 page beautifully designed memoir and Shaw’s first leap into the world of shock literature.

This book was released in an edition of 1,000 copies. Please visit the Heartworm
STORE to order a copy.

According to Johnny Depp, “If Hubert Selby Jr., Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neil Cassady, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the Marquis de Sade, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Edward Teach, Charley Parker, Iggy Pop, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, R. Crumb, Robert Williams, Joe Coleman, Dashiell Hammett, E.M. Cioran and all of the Three Stooges had all been involved in some greasy, shameful, evil whorehouse orgy, Jonathan Shaw would surely be its diabolical, reprobate spawn.” With a fan base that includes Lydia Lunch (who provides an introduction), Depp, Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop, it is already a much-anticipated debut.

We also released two photo/collage zines by Dan Murphy- Stuck On The Map and William Boone- Suicidal Tenants (Heartworm #17 and 19) and there are a few copies of each left.

Founded by Wesley Eisold and based in Philadelphia, Heartworm has released an impressive string of projects ranging from books and zines to limited albums and artist prints. Narcisa is the latest must have as all the releases are in limited runs. Quit reading gossip and or jerking off and hit up their site now and buy it along with their other releases before they vanish.

With most releases reaching “out of print” status within days, you’ll have to scour and dig to find some of their gems but it’s worth your time and effort. The recent casualties make up and unholy trinity that you’ll need to avoid purgatory :

The Father :The Cold Cave Demo 12″, a collision of synth, dissonance and melody.

The Son : Max G Morton’s sweat, spit and acid soaked diary set to the Void side of the Faith/Void split Indestructible Wolves of the Apocalypse Junkyard

The Holy Ghost : XO Skeletons‘ Bored By Heaven Lp pressed on vinyl with sketchy layout and your own piece of the gospel to read before your dreams of fetish and licorice.

Digital is convenient, but objects are forever. Someday we’ll have to buy a “convertorator” to turn our mp3s into mp33s and catalog our jpegs into the latest and greatest form of ones and zeros but your Heartworm wares can be stored conveniently in your hope chest at the bottom of your altar for your perusal sans wifi connection or electricity.

Visit the site often as it’s constantly being updated with new saccharine for your cavities.

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Everyone knows about Southie, the Boston white ghetto made famous by Good Will Hunting and The Departed. But did you there was a place called East Boston, another white ghetto, that’s filled with Italians not Irish? Pretty neat huh? And Eastie rules. They had an Italian Fest this weekend and these two women, Gabby Rizzuto and Christin Skane, were captured by the Boston Globe.

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The Barry Files

Pic by US Army

Anyone else wake up most mornings, look at the news, then think with a smile: Is this guy really going to our next President?

Senator Obama is in Iraq right now. Here he is cruising in a Blackhawk with General Pertaeus. Last week, Iraqi PM Maliki endorsed Obama’s Iraq plan. After Obama hits Israel later this week, we can start to review his Mid East-Afghanistan trip in full, but so far he’s gotten a great response and head of state treatment.

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These photos of the Haitian food crisis are from May, but I never caught them. By Eric Thayer.

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Yesterday I mentioned that children should be causing trouble in the woods not rolling around on Heelys and listening to Wilco.  Judging by the graphics from  newly launched New Jersey based comapny Totally Skateboards, they agree.

.

I see muscle cars, fire, butterfly knives and chains. All things of these objects seldom lead to anything productive but they are fun as hell. In fact if you put them all together, marinate them in yellow beer and drop them in New Jersey you have a good fucking time in the making…unless you’re a girl I guess.

Jersey boys Dave Wasnak, Pat Guidotti, and Anthony Anastasio were united in the desire to create a skateboarding first company with quality products using top notch wood and simple, functional shapes.

Peep the promo to see new and old blood rip and get ready to be wiped out TOTALLY! (If you’re a surfboard dude of course….AYE!)

Totally Skateboards

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Correction: I’ve stated several times on this blog that India has 700,000 troops in Kashmir. That figure is wildly off the mark, and I apoligize. In fact, India’s entire army is only about 1 million strong. Estimates of Indian troops in Kashmir range from 250,000 to 400,000.

Somone named Pajhwok got this depressing, chaotic shot for AFP.

No one’s yet claimed responsibility for yesterday’s car bombing. That’s pretty rare, as modern terrorism is all about theatrics, future recruitment, credit, and of course death. Considering this was the single biggest bombing in Kabul (killing 41 and wounding 150) since the war on terror began, one would assume the attackers would want credit. Of course, the Afghans and Indians are blaming Pakistan’s ISI. India and Pakistan are in a forever war so maybe the ISI was indeed behind the attack. The ISI certainly maintains contacts with all the potential attackers. More likely, this was just an anti-Karzai attack carried out by an increasingly sophisticated Taliban. Afghanistan-watcher Barnett Rubin blogged the blame game in real time and it reads pretty funny (if anyone besides Hassan can follow all the competing factions I’ll buy you a beer):

I heard on the radio that “Taliban” have claimed responsibility for this act. (Also reported by Reuters.) Let’s see which “Taliban.” Did it come from the former Taliban leadership in Quetta, or did it come from the Haqqani group in North Waziristan? (Note that both command and control centers of the Taliban are in Pakistan.) The latter is campaigning for predominance — last week a document surfaced in which Jalaluddin Haqqani charged Mullah Umar and the Quetta shura with incompetence. (The authenticity of this document has yet to be established — facsimile above left from here. [UPDATE 1: A source in Kabul who has been investigating it tells me the document is mostly likely a fake. Psy-ops, I guess.]) Kabul is also focusing its accusations of terrorism on the Haqqani group, which it claims reports daily to the ISI and which has much closer links to al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban than does the Quetta shura.

UPDATE 2: Now I heard on NPR that the “Taliban” have denied responsibility. Let me stick my neck out here: I don’t believe that the Kandahari Taliban leadership would mount an attack like this against the Indian embassy. The idea of such an attack came from some combination of all or some of the following: the Haqqani group (as part of a campaign for Pakistani support), Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaida, and the Pakistani security agencies, or private entities under their supervision.

Reuters: The Afghan “Interior Ministry believes this attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region,” that is, Pakistan’s ISI.

Taliban (Quetta shura) spokesman denies responsibility:
Still, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the militants were behind the bombing. The Taliban tend to claim responsibility for attacks that inflict heavy tolls on international or Afghan troops, and deny responsibility for attacks that primarily kill Afghan civilians.

“Whenever we do a suicide attack, we confirm it,” Mujahid said. “The Taliban did not do this one.”

Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned the attack. I heard him on the BBC (I can’t find the interview on line yet), and he sounded very sincere and pained by it, almost as if the attack were aimed at his government — which it might be.

UPDATE 3: According to someone who who spent most of the 1980s with the mujahidin in Afghanistan, even then Jalaluddin Haqqani was saying that the number one enemy was India. I’ve asked a few people, and so far no one can recall hearing this kind of talk from the core Taliban in Quetta. In my experience, the Kandahari mujahidin resisted Pakistani influence quite strongly.

Also, a possible motive for yesterday’s attack that’s gone unmentioned is the pending US-India nuclear deal that’s being negotiated right now at the G8 summit in Japan. Pakistanis, Iranians, and Muslims in general hate that the US would legitimize India’s illegal nuclear program. It is bafflingly hypocritical of the US to give India a nuke package at the same time we’re going after Iran and AQ Khan.

One positive thing that could come out of this is a US-media spotlight on regional complexities (specifically Pakistan and India’s hate, best defined by the 60-year ongoing war over Kashmir) and how it ties to the West’s fight in Afghanistan. I don’t think victory in Afghanistan is possible as long as Kashmir simmers. Both Jihads (against the US in Afghan and India and Kashmir) are too intertwined. And only the US could really broker peace between India and Pakistan. Obama should make Kashmir a campaign issue.

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The strange tale of Max Mosley, the head of Formula One, who was caught on video in a Nazi-themed sex orgy with five prostitutes, gets stranger. He’s suing the News of the World, which secretly videotaped the orgy, for an invasion of privacy. Mosley claimed that he was doing something in private with five consenting women, and the only reason he’s under fire is because his father was the leader of the British Union of Fascists and Hitler’s friend.

Mr Mosley was caught on video by the News of the World with five women in an underground “torture chamber” in Chelsea, where he spent several hours allegedly indulging in sado-masochistic sex. The Oxford-educated former barrister, who is president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), reenacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of both guard and inmate. Speaking in German and brandishing a leather whip, he beat the women after allowing himself to be subjected to a humiliating inspection for lice and an interrogation in chains.

In his defense, Mosley said that he could think of “few things more unerotic than Nazi roleplay.” Clearly, he’s never heard of stalags.

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Awesome…shot by Uwe Duettmann and designed for cover-readiness by Stephen Kennedy (for Studio Fury) via Ben Verlinde, the fascist design king of 14th St.

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Photo of week, Barack Obama, 6/28/2008 by Melissa Golden, Getty Images

Happy July everyone. Let the general election begin! 

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Political campaigns, as they say, are all about narrative and image. And when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared together Friday for the first time—in a NH town called Unity no less—more of the world’s top young photojournalists were on-hand than for any other single event of the campaign (at least to my knowledge).

Tama

The fact that Getty Images sent two New York staffers, Mario Tama and Spencer Platt, both extremely talented and well-known breaking news photographers, to a tiny town in NH says it all. The Obama campaign scored an essential coup by getting these Unity photos into the public sphere.

Platt

And the NYT sent Tyler Hicks, who’s also of world renown for his news reportage. The last time all three (Tama, Platt, Hicks) shot an out-of-NY story together was probably Katrina. This underlines how powerful Hillary-Obama images are, illustrating how the two are still the biggest show in American politics.

Hicks

After Unity, Nymag’s John Heilemen (who with Mark Helperin recently sold a mid-six figure book on the 2008 campaign) states the obvious about Obama’s best choice for VP:

It it’s hard to think of anyone who would fit the change-AND-experience bill that Obama is trying to fill — except, that is, for a certain lady in a pantsuit. Hillary Clinton, of course, has plenty of baggage. And she is nobody’s idea of an outsider. But given her gender, it wouldn’t take much doing message-wise to frame her as an emblem of change. And even her critics acknowledge that her cojones are more than capacious enough to qualify her as commander-in-chief. (There is no Democrat more admired by the top military brass.) The smart set tells us that Clinton is ruled out by her husband; in particular, by his unwillingness to divulge certain details about his business dealings and to reveal the list of donors to his presidential library. And in general by the bitterness he apparently continues to nurse toward Obama (cf the remark of Clinton’s reported over the weekend that Obama can “kiss my ass” in return for his support.)

Yet if WJC were to stop behaving like a petulant adolescent and muster up a change of heart — an enormous “if,” I’m well aware, but doesn’t he owe HRC that much? — the case for Hillary would be nearly watertight. Unity. Brand equity. A fighter’s mettle. An ass-kicking ability as a debater. What more could you ask for in a veep? It’s a question that, I bet, will be plaguing Obama in the days and weeks to come.

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David Matysiak is an Omaha-based musician and artist. He’s also my cousin. Originally from Georgia, Matysiak left the south for Nebraska’s more fertile—and affortable—creative grounds. His first project as a fellow at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art has just been completed. Called Telephono, the interactive work involves various musicians sending tracks to one another, each adding or tweaking the original song.  

Paste Magazine’s Henry Freedland writes:

Omaha musician David Matysiak began 15 new songs knowing that somebody else could completely change his initial idea—and that was the point.

Matysiak, a resident at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and lead singer for the band Coyote Bones, began Telephono as an audio experiment to put musicians from around the world into productive contact with one another. He would begin a song and send it to the next person in the chain (usually around four people long). Each subsequent musician would manipulate and reinterpret the audio file before passing it on down the line. 

Sound familiar? The project takes its cue from the children’s gameTelephone, in which a whispered secret is passed around a circle and almost always gets back to the teller changed—sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident. Communication, it teaches, is a complicated endeavor.

With Telephono, Matysiak looked to take this idea into a creative direction. And as the titles suggest (”Mazzy Star married our hearts that night in 7th grade when we first french kissed” is one, to give a taste), the project is not an empty exercise in Internet philandering and crossed wires, but rather a hopeful look at the potential of cooperation across terrestrial and sonic boundaries. 

Those involved ranged from local Omaha musicians Matysiak knew well—like oft-collaborator Nick White from Tilly and the Wall or Eli Mardock from Eagle Seagull—to various artists worldwide, including  such disparate locations of Italy, Sweden and Denmark. Other contributors included Tim Kasher of Cursive, Bob Nanna of Braid and Hey Mercedes, Ludvig Rylander of The Concretes, Jason Lowenstein of Sebadoh and Jonas Bjerre of Mew.

In the end, Telephono yielded 40 unique song files spread over the 15 musical projects. Box sets contain five vinyl records’ worth of 12 sets of these creations, with art by Georgia’s own Jordan Noel. The listening/release party will be held on July 17 at the Bemis Center in Omaha.

Related links:

Telephono.org

CoyoteBones.com

Omaha.com: “Omaha musician plays it forward”

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One of Med’s contributors, Anthony Pappalardo, has been working for years on the definitive monograph concerning American hardcore’s aesthetics. Radio Silence: A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music (MTV Books) saw its  Amazon listing go live last night. Awesome! So everyone, pass this around and get the pre-orders buzzing. From Amazon:

Book Description
“Each scene was a reflection of its time and place. It was organic to each city.” (Dave Smalley, DYS, Dag Nasty, All, Down By Law) Hardcore music emerged just after the first wave of punk rock in the late 1970s. American punk kids who loved the speed and attitude of punk took hold of its spirit, got rid of the “live fast, die young” mindset, and made a brilliant revision: hardcore. The dividing line between punk and hardcore music was in the delivery: less pretense, less melody, and more aggression. This urgency seeped its way from the music into the look of hardcore. There wasn’t time to mold your liberty spikes or shine your Docs; it was jeans and T-shirts, Chuck Taylors and Vans. The skull and safety-pin punk costume was replaced by high-tops and hooded sweatshirts. The Jamie Reid ransom note record cover aesthetic gave way to black and white photographs of packed shows accompanied by bold and simple typography, declaring The Kids Will Have Their Say or You’re Only Young Once. This new come-as-you-are attitude attracted skateboarders, surfers, BMX’rs, metalheads, and graffiti writers, with each group adding their diverse influences to the scene. This cross-pollination helped to create an eclectic cross section of bands like Bad Brains, Negative Approach, SSD, Big Boys, and 7 Seconds. Radio Silence documents the ignored space between the Ramones and Nirvana through the words and images of the pre-internet era when this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived. Without funding, distribution, or exposure, the scene had to be self-sufficient in order to grow. Everyone involved from bands to fans took it upon themselves to book shows, photograph bands, broadcast pirate radio shows, start record labels, design album covers, publish fanzines, or just offer a place for a band to crash. Authors Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo have cataloged private collections of photographs, personal letters, artwork, and various ephemera from the hardcore scene circa 1978-1993. Unseen images accompany to handmade T-shirts and original artwork brought to life by the words of their creators and fans. Radio Silence includes over 500 images of rare records, T-shirts, fanzines, photographs, and illustrations presented in a manner that abandons the aesthetic clichés normally used to depict the genre and lets the subject matter speak for itself.

About the Author
Anthony Pappalardo wrote for Slap Magazine from 1997 to 2002 and has been published in Alternative Press, Mass Appeal, and Magnet. He’s toured and recorded albums for the hardcore bands Ten Yard Fight, In My Eyes, and Get Down, and has produced for other bands including The Explosion.

Many of the monograph’s photos were taken by Erik Lee Snyder, whose work led the Getty Pavilion at the 2008 New York Photography Fair and has appeared in ESPN the Magazine and Surface among others. Below, a Dischord Records collage and portrait of Minor Threat’s Jeff Nelson…

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I don’t have much time to write about this and I couldn’t do it even half as well as others currently are, instead here’s some videos from one of the greatest comedian and social commentators we’ve ever had. A genius.

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It’s as rare to find a t-shirt design idea that isn’t some re-appropriated/rip-off graphic as it is to find one with a positive political message creatively integrated into a fresh design idea that’s not for nerds.

Our friend Straight Ed’s t-shirt company pulls it off, taking animal silhouettes (like a dog, gorilla and penguin) and rendering them in the same style you’d see the two American political party logos.

The message is simple, we need more party animals. The standard choice of the lesser of two evils (Dems or Republicans) just isn’t enough of a choice. We need more.

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The scene in Copley Sq: fans and the racist cops who hate them, arresting a doo-rag-men. Pics by Geoff Kenyon.

In Europe they’re called hooligans, sometimes thugs. Americans call them delinquents, punks. In Boston, Mayor Menino calls them “knuckleheads.” Others use the anti-Irish Sully or Mick. But the most unique word to describe Boston’s insane fans is “Yahoo.” As in, “You see that fahkin’ Yahoo on TV throw a street sign through that window?”

For the past week, I’ve been among the Yahoos in Boston and various towns along Massachuesetts’ North Shore and Merrimack Valley, and in southern New Hampshire. This area truly is Celtic Nation, and it’s where I grew up. Remember, the Pats play 30 miles south of Boston, in Foxboro, and the C’s above North Station. Admittedly, I think I am a Yahoo. 

The latest episode of Yahoo-ery started Tuesday night with KG’s post-game interview. The Celtics had just won their first NBA victory in 22 years, a record 17th for the franchise. Still, it was the first ring for C’s superstars’ Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett. Green and white confetti rained down as the Big Three got emo on the parquet.  KG—tears in his eyes, scowling, yelping, hat pulled lowed—suddenly thanked “Peanut” on network TV. 

Of course, no one knew who Peanut was. But every Yahoo in Boston has a friend nicknamed a Peanut. And with this, the streets began to fill with Yahoos, myself included, our collective inhebriated brains thinking, “Yeah Peanut!!! This one’s for you!!! Peanut…ooowwwoooowaaaawaa!!”

I was by Northeastern University—Yahoo Central—my alma matter (ok, I went there for one year), bottle of tequila in hand, a “Wooooo” on my tongue, celebrating on St Stevens St. There I spotted two Yahoos in wife-beaters aptly beating up a mailbox. One had sweet ink: a tribal armband enmeshed with a Red Sox “B.” Around the corner, in front of Our House (a bar famous for selling $3 32 oz. beers called Bruebakers aka “‘Roid Rage-ade”): ten Yahoos hugging while pogoing and yelling “Boston, Boston!”

Inside the bar, TVs were tuned to live footage of fans rioting downtown—dancing around mini-fires, running into trees, climbing trees, kissing trees, facing off with cops. I soon found myself fighting the bouncer at Our House for absolutely no reason. Kicked out, I put on another shirt and snuck back in. “Lollipop” was playing; chubby fake id chicks dancing; ‘roid bros started fighting. Damn, it felt good to be a Yahoo…

(more…)

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Attending Thursday’s Celtics’ victory parade, I was amazed by how high a percentage of the crowd were women. After the parade ended, I borrowed Geoff Kenyon’s camera to document the scene on Newbury St. Never has Boston’s most famous commercial strip had such a cool, young, and festive spirit.

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The Pogues “Just Look Them Straight In The Eye and Say… Pogue Mahone!!” Box Set has finally been released. I won’t properly “review” it due partly to personal time constraints, and partly because no amount of my adulation and praise will likely get you to drop the price of a tank of gas (at current prices) on a 5 CD box set unless you’re already obsessed with the band.

That said, if you do happen to be a Pogues fanatic, your year has been made. 111 songs. An absolute goldmine of demos, outtakes, live, rare, unreleased, thought missing, cover songs, and the like that span the entire Pogues career (pre-Red Roses to post-Shane) — I only bought it yesterday, but during a once-through listen of the entire thing my jaw continually dropped; BBC Sessions, “Hell’s Ditch” outtakes, “If I Should Fall From Grace…” outtakes, Joe Strummer-fronted covers of The Clash songs, Peel Sessions, their contributions to the “Sid and Nancy”, “Straight to Hell” , and “Garbo” soundtracks, covers of “Maggie May”, “Do You Believe in Magic?” (a “Poguetry in Motion sessions outtake), “Eve of Destruction” (made famous to some by Barry McGuire, others by Johnny Thunders), a dub version of “Young Ned of the Hill” (!), the original demo versions of later Shane MacGowan solo songs (”Victoria”, “Aisling”, “The Donegal Express”), early demos of “Fairytale of New York” which showcase the musical and lyrical progression of the greatest Christmas song ever written, the list goes on and on and on… Philip Chevron wrote the liner notes, the songs and their provenance are exhaustively cataloged and the proper credit given, and a number of non-Shane-centric pictures are included.

For the uninitiated, it’s easy to overlook the Pogues greatness by concentrating on the stories of drinking and drugs, fights, affairs, and toothless gentleman. This Box Set will remind you of their songwriting greatness, proficiency of execution, and the simple fact that they are one of the best rock bands of the last 30 years. If nothing else, it’s comforting to be reminded that Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse are utter posers compared to one of the world’s all-time great substance-abusers… this dude:

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ESPN Page 2 columnist Jemele Hill has everyone heated with her controversial comments that were pulled from her latest article :

Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.

The column got past her editors with this comment which isn’t surprising because they let Bill Simmons submit the same article every fucking day. Just a side note, does he have a “Sports Guy Column Generator” that spits out tired 1980s guy pop culture references in Men’s Mag Slang centered around a Boston team or his latest man-crush? Bad news Bill, Karate Kid sucks, Star Wars sucks, the Godfather is long and fucking boring and you have Bank Teller hair. Now back to Jemele, in keeping with ESPN Page 2’s style, she’s a terrible writer and she used a pretty raw comparison. Hitler and 9/11 comparisons normally result in someone going “Whoaaaa man stop it don’t go there!” as if some imaginary line has been crossed that could only be crossed by a complete asshole. I don’t have a problem with people making such comparisons, when Katie Holmes’ tits are described as the opposite of the holocaust it was cool and what Jemele did is cheap, in poor taste for an ESPN writer but the Celtics fans, especially the ones that call Boston their home are the ones who are offending me right now.

Everyone is upset in Boston, popular fan site Red’s Army is calling for her to be fired and wbztv.com posted some fan responses yesterday :

“We’re not talking about war; we’re talking about basketball,” one fan outside the Garden said. “How can you compare Hitler to a basketball game?”

“I don’t think you can say Hitler is a victim no matter what the circumstance is. That’s over the top,” another fan said.

These responses sicken me, Celtics fans are as fucking soft as the Celtics’ performance in the 4th quarter of Game 5. Boston Massachusetts is a city that was pissed off that a Holocaust Memorial was being constructed downtown too close to whatever the fucking Bank World Dunkin Donut Garden Center was called that week and too close to the Italian district, the North End. How dare they make us remember Holocaust victims while we’re staring at a statue of Paul Revere en route to a Celtics game (who the fuck went to Celtics games in 1995) belly stuffed full of carbs from the North End. This is a city built on racism, where Smitty O’Houlahan can blame anything he wants on a “nigger” and cops will turn the other red alcoholic cheek. Some area Jews didn’t even want the memorial in Boston because they felt it wasn’t an appropriate location. Downtown Boston is so fat and white that Jewish people actually felt bad breaking up that vibration

So now the poor fans are pissed off and are calling for the head of Jemele Hill the latest goat. It probably helps that she’s black as it’s easier for the city to rally against her. There is a bigger task at hand for the Celtics and their fans and that’s winning a Championship not whining about bad journalism and cheap shot comparisons.

Oh yeah, the Celtics fan side of myself would like to get a jab in though because that side of me is petty, Jemele your gummy grin and bulbous features are as shocking and offensive to me on this Tuesday afternoon as your attempts at journalism. Leave the vulgarity and cheap shot comparisons to bloggers, it’s all we have, you get the pay check, the paid appearances and fanfare, we just want to have exclusivity on swearing and Hitler comparisons if that’s cool with your fat ugly ass. Thanks.

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The NYT Sunday Style’s checks in with Parisian hebrew Olivier Zahm, founder of Purple Magazine and Purpler Jounal.Zahm is about as cool as Frogs get, though he buys into the commercial downtown NYC street thing a little too much. But he’s excused because of his French origins. Rizzoli just published the Purple Anthology: Art Prose Fashion Sex Music Architecture Sex (ah, le good life). The book is maybe the best single volume of 2000s style.

OLIVIER ZAHM, a founder and the editor of Purple magazine.
WHAT I’M WEARING NOW An Yves Saint Laurent leather jacket and ostrich boots, American Apparel jeans and a vintage Christian Dior shirt. I buy a lot of these T-shirts from Eleven on Elizabeth Street. They feel sweet against the skin. My watch is a Seiko from the ’80s. It looks like a gold Rolex, which I can’t afford yet. The glasses are Ray-Ban. I have five pairs, all in different shades of amber. I love amber. It’s a beautiful color for men. The only perfume I wear is because of its amber color — Azzaro, which is an old cheap cologne for workers.

STYLE CREDO To me, the best time for men was in the ’70s. I would love to look like Polanski or Jack Nicholson back then, the way they wore their jeans with just a shirt, a good watch, glasses and a nice white jacket. It was simple, but really sexy. At the beginning of this decade all the men got very glamorous. They started buying a lot of clothes. Me, I don’t like it. When you notice clothing on a man, I find it suspicious.

I’ve long said that a man should never distract from the woman he’s with. A man’s job is to make a woman’s style shine. Timeless not trends define good male style. Zahm, you rule!

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