Blogging on Meds

You really are a hustler. One of my favorite musicians, Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy, who’s nicknamed “The Snowman” for all the blow he’s dealt, has been implicated as a kilo-buying client in the trial of a $270 million dollar coke ring. I tend to assume most rappers lie in their songs. Not Jeezy, though. Of course, Jeezy’s best tune, “Trap Star,” is about a drug house. Ah, life as art. Crazy stuff:

Simms testified that his job was to unload BLACK MAFIA FAMILY cocaine from limos outfitted with secret compartments. He said he piled as many as 100 “bricks” of cocaine at a time inside the basement of one of BMF’s stash houses, an ultra-modern Buckhead mansion nicknamed “Space Mountain.” And he said that on one occasion, in the fall of 2004, he was ordered by high-ranking BMF members Chad “J-Bo” Brown and Martez “Tito” Byrth to set aside multi-kilo cocaine “shipments” for two customers. Simms said the customers picked up the coke from him at Space Mountain.

When asked by assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney who the customers were, Simms gave two names: William “Doc” Marshall, a high-level BMF co-conspirator who testified earlier in the trial, and “Jeezy.”

“Young Jeezy the rapper?” McBurney asked.

“Yes,” Simms answered.

Jeezy’s name cropped up several times in the first two days of testimony, but only in relation to his well-publicized friendship with BMF’s Atlanta-based leader, Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory. In November, Flenory pleaded guilty in Detroit to running a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces a minimum sentence of 20 years.

BMF is believed to have employed 500 people across the country in its $270 million cocaine ring — nearly 150 of whom have been indicted in seven states. According to testimony in Daniels’ trial this week, BMF only dealt in multiple kilos of cocaine, which were distributed to other cocaine dealers.

Growing up in New England in the 80’s the biggest rivalry in sports was not Red Sox Yankees, as it is today. It was Lakers Celtics, and maybe even more so Bird Magic. One of my favorite stories from that period, is their first meeting in the NBA Finals in 1984. The Celtics were down 2 games to 1 and had just been humiliated by a score of 137-104. During the post game Bird made the following comments:

“We just played like a bunch of women tonight (sorry Hillary). You know we got some great players on this team, but we don’t have the players with the heart some time that we need.”

The next game Kevin McHale clotheslined Kurt Rambis and the rest is history. Celtics went on to win 4 -3.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that my love affair with the Celtics changed after the retirement of Bird and the death of Reggie Lewis. But today, the Celtics are back, and after all these years it is fitting that the Lakers are the team they must go through in order to hang banner 17.

From Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe

Time to dust off the old Larry Bird/Magic Johnson posters. Thursday night on Causeway Street, the Celtics will host the same franchise they faced when they last advanced this far in 1987 - the Los Angeles Lakers. It’ll be the 11th Finals matchup between the Celtics and Lakers.

(Why not dust off a pic of my favorite Sega Genesis game as well)

Look, a war. Just a reminder that the net controversy below is very unimportant…

Yesterday we accidentally blew up a story about Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson saying Ariana Huffington had hired a PI to spy on a fellow journo, Maureen Orth, Tim Russert’s wife. Gawker picked it up:

Arianna Huffington and Her Mysterious Private Eye Enrage Chris Matthews

And Jossip responded:

The Blogger Who Threw Chris Matthews, and a Photographer Friend, Under the Bus is V. V. Sorry

Thanks to the lovely Google Cache, a blog’s since-pulled offline report about Chris Matthews’ revelation and Tucker Carlson’s confirmation, during a Portfolio photo shoot at MSNBC’s D.C. studio, that Arianna Huffington had hired a private investigator to tail a NBC colleague (since identified as Tim Russert) can still be read. [Google Cache]

As it the censored item now reads: “The original author of this post and the editor of this blog would like to sincerely apologize to Conde Nast, Portfolio, Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson and the photographer on set for any problems or inconvenience we might have caused. We had no intention to bring harm to anybody involved.”

Except, well, too late? The blogger, REDACTED, has officially screwed over his friend, the photographer, who he tagged along with. No more Conde Nast work for you, buddy.

First off, no one was intentionally throwing anyone under buses. The original post was a journal-style report from a day of work. About 50 people read this site every day. The blogger who wrote the post knows little about politics and didn’t think Gawker or anyone would pick up on the story. No one told him the shoot was off-record, nor did he sign a confidentiality agreement.

Quit sucking Conde ass, Jossip. No one had ill-intent. Matthews and Carlson knew they were in the presence of a national magazine. If anyone is getting a raw deal, it’s the blogger who “overshared” (wasn’t there an 8000 word piece about this somewhere last week) about America’s top cable pundit’s grunge against new media’s uber-diva. Ease up…

Second, the choice to remove the story was not an editorial one. Rather, it was the professional and personal choice of the blogger who wrote the post. Nonetheless, the story is true and this site stands by it.

Also weighing in: Warner Todd Hudson, a conservative writer, who said of the Med A mission statement:

Chris Matthews Holding Long Time Grudge Against Arianna Huffington?

I always love this sort of mindless bravado. Oh we are soooo brave to be unapologetically offending people, we are soooo cool that propriety and an effort at serious content is beneath us. Generally used as cover for slovenly work, this sort of blowhard-like posturing is as childish as it sounds. But, I am amused to point out that their puffed up sense of cool-to-be-cruel, outrageousness seems to have taken an immediate back seat the second someone’s job was threatened!

Suddenly their original false bravado is the last thing on their minds and a groveling apology becomes of great import when real life comes a knocking. So much for their claim that they intend “offending” one and all. Playing at coolness instead of sticking to their guns.

Donthca hate it when lefties are mugged by reality like that?

Listen dude, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but several writers on this blog have risked their lives working in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and beyond. We’re not ideological political hacks. The mission statement is kind of dumb, yes. But check some of the writers backgrounds or read some of the work on the site and suddenly your three overblown, hyperbole-strewn paras above become bullshit. Seriously though, nice job extending what could have been said in two sentences with words like “sooooo” and “groveling” and “slovenly” and “blowhard-like” (why not just “blowhard”?). I have a copy of the Elements of Style if you’d like to borrow it.

The post in question happened to have legal and professional consequences and was removed from the site pending resolution. Of course, it remains available in the public sphere, as Gawker and Jossip state. Anyway, don’t talk shit until you’ve checked out who you’re shit talking. Or else I’ll come kick your ass in the blogger section at the GOP convention in St Paul (kidding).

Finally, Tucker Carlson emailed Gawker this:

Nick,

I just read your Gawker item that describes a photo shoot Chris Matthews and I did yesterday morning at NBC in Washington. I have no idea who wrote it, but it’s filled with completely false quotes attributed to me. Here’s one: I’m described as saying I love cookies, alcohol and cigarettes. Except that I don’t smoke and haven’t had a drink in six years.

This is my good e-mail address. Please send warning next time you plan to libel me.

Thanks,
Tucker Carlson

Tucker, bro, I love you, but our guy heard what he heard.

So there you have it. Should the Med blogger have written the offending report? Maybe not. But it was a mistake, he’s sorry, and that’s that. Oh, and John McCain sucks.

Gross! New pictures considered evidence against Warren Jeffs (puke) the fundamental polygamist Mormon leader have surfaced and wow! For all you pervs out there, they do not disappoint!

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that one of the girls in the pictures was twelve at the time. Keepin it old school! Keepin it Old Testament!

It would be so typical of me to mention how hypocritical our nation is for our finger pointing of womens issues within fundamentalist Islam when we obviously still have those same issues here, but that would super obvious and unnecessary.

On the night of February 5th, 2008, Nicholas Garza, an extraordinarily bright, strikingly attractive Middlebury College freshman left the Stewart dorm with a friend at 10:43pm. It was the beginning of winter break and not many students were on Middlebury’s campus, whose pastoral sprawl was blanketed with snow. Nick was probably doing what most freshmen do during winter break when you’re stuck on campus: drinking, and wandering around looking for something to do. He entered another dorm, Allen at 10:48pm.

This is where things get weird. He was last seen leaving this building at 11:05pm to make the short walk back across Rte. 125 to get back to his dorm room some 500 yards away. He has not been seen since.

Generally, after this much time, one would assume that Nick Garza is no longer alive. But there are so many unanswered questions. To me, some stand out like prints in snow: why is so little information reported while there is an extensive investigation underway? How could someone like Nick just disappear into to the clean, privileged air of the Middlebury campus without a trace?

In an ongoing investigation, police aren’t obligated to give the media information if it’s going to be detrimental to the case. As of Thursday, May 8th, police are closer to solving the case than ever, but mainly because for the first time in three long months there are a few clues into his disappearance.

After exhaustive searches throughout the winter snow found no traces of Nick, a marine search team from Maine took aerial photos of Otter Creek, the powerful river that cuts through the center of town. This was the only area of Middlebury that had yet to be thoroughly searched. One photo showed what the marine group described as “an object of interest” –an article or thing that matched the colors of Nick’s jeans and white sneakers. It could be his legs? A blue and white chair? Who knows. By the time the information got back to the search team the object had moved further down the river and into the night.

Early this Wednesday, investigators found graffiti on a shed near Otter Creek with what resembled a smiley face. This doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary, unless you’re obsessed with morbid stuff, like crime shows about serial killers, and it’s this piece of evidence that made my skin crawl.

Authorities have claimed that over the past decade, upwards of 40 young men, usually outstanding college students, have been murdered by killers who left similar graffiti near their victims. The victims’ bodies were often found in rivers, but nobody could prove they just “fell into the water” and drowned. This mysterious “group” of killers has been dubbed “The Smiley Face Gang” by a few retired NYC detectives who have investigated disappearances of these men.

However, as of today Chief Thomas Handley of Middlebury is downplaying the recent developments. “There’s been a lot of misinformation in the media and a lot of conjecture,” he said. “People are saying things they shouldn’t be saying.” Hanley also rejected media reports linking the Garza case to the serial killer gang. “From what I’ve seen of the media portrayals of the smiley face stuff, this didn’t look anything like it,” he said.

As recently as last week, Joshua Szostack, a Latham College student who had been missing since December 23rd is now being looked at as a possible Smiley Face victim. A smiley face was found near the Hudson River where Joshua’s body eventually turned up. Latham College is in Albany, about 2 hours from Middlebury Vermont.

Gangs do a lot of killing but it’s usually for profit, not smiles. I wasn’t able to contact the NYC detectives who work the Smiley Face gang, but I did contact a former NYPD officer who also had doubts about a “gang” of killers, and said there could be an individual behind these seemingly ritual cases.

The media can easily assist detectives and police working a missing persons case. And parents play a crucial role in the investigation as well. (America’s Most Wanted, Amber Alert). Nick’s mother, Natalie Garza has taken up residence in Middlebury since February, and maintained an impressively strong, un-hysterical front these past few months. She is always articulate and composed in the manner in which she speaks to the media about her missing son. One can only imagine the torment and frustration she is going through.

There is very little anyone else can do. I know a Sheriff in Texas (they don’t mess around there). He explains that the rule of thumb played by most investigators goes something like this: “Don’t doubt anything, objectivity is the key to credibility.” Not surprising words from a police, but then again the obvious lead detective in this case is the media. In serious cases such as homicide or missing persons, the media will put a spin to the information they provide in order to garner or provoke more information. They don’t provide the public with less information as one would assume. “It’s like a delicate art form, being selective with the language and information they have, or accepting less in order to appear in control of the situation” he tells me. There is too much at risk if too much information is revealed early.

Dive teams will go back in the water today in their effort to locate the body of Nick Garza. I have a feeling there either will come a massive break in this case soon, or we’ll be left wondering, with images of the rushing water of Otter Creek for a long time to come.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Nick Garza, please contact the Middlebury Police Department: 802-388-3191. Or email Officer Vegar Boe: vboe {at} police.middlebury.vt(.)us, or nickgarza.info {at} gmail(.)com.

The US is using AC-130 gunships over Baghdad’s Sadr City. With 2.5 million packed into 8-square miles, it’s one of the most densely populated neighborhoods on earth. You really can’t be discriminate there, especially when firing howitzers from 3000 ft in the air.

On Monday, the U.S. Air Force unleashed one of its most potent weapons, the AC-130 gunship, against Shiite extremists in Baghdad. The U.S. military said it killed at least nine militants in clashes since Sunday. The turboprop AC-130 — a variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane — can be outfitted with Gatling guns and howtizers.

As if tanks weren’t bad enough…What is happening in Sadr City is state sanctioned murder, per usual.

There are military elements to this assault, like curtailing mortar fire on the Green Zone. But using weapons like the AC-130 are not needed at this phase. We do not have enough troops in Iraq to secure Sadr City. Minimize killing civilian populations, please. Nothing is ending soon.

24 hours is all the Las Vegas I can handle, so that is what we scheduled to catch The Verve on Saturday night. The show took place at the Pearl Theater in the Palms Casino, and while I don’t really care about the NBA, I still felt like a d*ck giving my money to the Maloof Bros - owners of the Sacramento Kings and purveyors of crappy fashion (that super-starchy long collared shirt untucked-jeans-dress shoes look that cut-rate mortgage brokers think passes for “dressed up”).

The Bros Maloof’s basketball team may blow, but their concert theater is incredible - possibly the best sound I’ve EVER heard outside of an opera hall, held about 1500, and no seat was further than 120 feet from the stage. It was literally impossible to have a bad/obstructed view.

Now the good stuff… while I wasn’t expecting Richard Ashcroft to be wearing tan Clark’s Wallabies, I was surprised when he walked onstage, took off his boots, and played the entire show barefoot. Great call “Mad Richard”!

Here’s the set-list:

• A New Decade
• Sonnet
• Space In Time
• Life’s An Ocean
• Already There
• Weeping Willow
• Sit & Wonder (new song)
• The Rolling People
• Velvet Morning
• The Drugs Don’t Work
• Lucky Man
• Come On (w/ maracas and tambourine)

• History
• Bittersweet Symphony (which I think he dedicated to Mavis Staples)
• “Love Is Pain” (new song)

The band played great - incredibly tight, great stage presence, and I’m not sure Nick McCabe played a single riff - just free-flowing aural noise, effects, and awesomeness. My only complaint is somewhat petty; I would have liked a few more druggy/noisy/early songs - where was “Gravity Grave”, “Blue”, or “A Man Called Sun”?

I’m still pondering my feelings about the last song - “Love Is Pain”. It had a dance-floor club-anthem vibe, most notably in its New Order-esque drumbeat which Darrick from Innaway described perfectly as a “cheater drumbeat” for its “obviousness” — if that makes sense. It’s a definite departure for Ashcroft and Co., although not necessarily bad - just unexpected. That said, the British “lads” and “birds” in the crowd (of which there were A LOT) were loving this song, so I expect the bubble-club dance floors of Mallorca to be raging to this by summertime - along with MGMT/Justice/Madonna mashups. Check that YouTube link above (or NYC’ers, tell me your thoughts after MSG).

Finally, it seems between Coachella on Friday and Las Vegas on Saturday, Richard Ashcroft found time to dye his blond hair brown again:

The Philly debate and the GOP attack ads that followed.

One Thing PA Changed: The Media’s Love Affair with Obama is Over.

Last Wednesday during the first half of the ABC debate, Obama sparred with Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos over his character and electability. Obama came off as glib and annoyed.

The next day, Obama’s campaign and his supporters attacked ABC’s line of questioning, which they felt unfair. True, the entire first half of the debate was policy free; economy and Iraq questions should have been asked.

But the “electability” issue is a real one. The media was offended by the debate’s fallout. They considered it an overblown outrage towards a legitimate question: Is a black guy with a sketchy pastor, who thinks some whites are bitter, and who hangs with 60’s terrorists able to win in November?

I wondered last Thursday if Obama had lost the national media. But I knew that only after the PA primary, and only if Obama lost by a wide margin, would we see the results. Well, the results are in. Obama has indeed lost the media.

Since the debate, op-ed pages have simmered with Obama dissing. When even Bob Herbert, the resident black man at The Times, is complaing of “hollow rhetoric,” you know you have a problem. Both David Brooks and Maureen Dowd, previously Obama cheerleaders, have unsheathed their cleavers. Today, most major oped pages—NYT, WaPost, BosGlobe—question Obama’s candidacy in ways unseen before the debate.

The LAT takes the cake, leading with a “New Republican ads target Obama — and make Democrats fret” story. Looks like the electability issue ABC was hammering away at is real:

As they promote their candidates and try to pave the way for GOP victories this year, Republicans have begun making their case to voters in advertisements featuring a new star: Barack Obama.

In North Carolina, a TV ad shows Obama’s former pastor making racially charged comments. An Internet ad attacks a Pennsylvania congressman for endorsing Obama’s presidential bid. A New Mexico radio ad says Obama disrespects “the American way of life.”

The ads also are playing into a debate among Democratic officials about Obama’s electability in November. GOP strategists said the negative six-week campaign in Pennsylvania produced reams of material that, for the first time, laid out for them a clear pathway for attacking Obama. They pointed to the much-publicized sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama’s pastor of 20 years; his past association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers; and the senator’s own statement at a San Francisco-area fundraiser that “bitter” people in small towns “cling” to faith, guns and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Note those three issues (Wright, bittergate, Weather U) were at the top of ABC’s questioning. So was ABC really out of line? Obama is going to have answer these questions all year—ABC was just the first to ask them. “Electability” is the campaign’s main issue now, so if anything ABC was ahead of the curve.

Obama’s visible annoyance during the debate, combined with his campaign and supporters’ over-reaction, is yet another example of a rookie mistake. Why didn’t Obama make light of all these unimportant questions about faith and flag—crack a joke, laugh at that idiotic flag woman? Why did he let surrogates run wild and attack ABC afterwards? Why pick a fight with the media, who’ve largely offered positive coverage?

Obama’s been on a slow dive since early March. He ought to shake up his campaign a bit, re-write his stump speech (I never want to hear the Dick Cheney’s my cousin joke again), and start outlining real policy proposals. This week the New Republic, Obama’s house organ, runs a million word piece about Obama’s Iraq plan being a lie. If Obama is truly above “old politics,” he’ll take this chance to ignore the gossip and petty personality/character talk and move issues—especially that little war in Iraq—back to the center of the race.

I’m already hacking away at this freelancing biz like a recreational journalist, I don’t need any more hurdles like losing ownership of my work.

Two years ago there was a massive petition effort by photogs, illustrators and artists that shot down what was called the Orphan Works Bill, which would’ve made it more difficult to chase down companies that steal your work. (or made it way easier to profit on others’ creativity without paying them)

The Illustrators Partnership confirmed this week that Congress has sent it a new copy of the bill that was to be introduced within days. And considering the elections and summer campaigning, the bet is that it will be fast-tracked and up for vote by mid-May — which is way, way less time to organize an opposition like last time.

The bill text isn’t up on thomas.loc.gov, nor was it on any schedules, but this blogger and bill supporter says it was introdcued today. He also says worked with the staff writing the legislation, and he’s posted PDFs, presumably of the Senate version and the House’s.

An artist-perspective summation (disregard the cheezy intro and sleazy top-level domain) from earlier this month was confirmed as being accurate by the Illustrators Parnership after it got the bills. Dude’s site also has a q&a primer.

The gist is that the bill would cancel copyrights on all works the made up to 30 years ago and on. In order to have them protected, the owner will have to list them with private registries, which don’t exist yet.

The bill is generally popular because it’s sold as benefiting libraries and museums so they can use old stuff whose owners can’t be located (hence the bill title). There’s also scare tactic argument floated by academics that copyrights hold them back from doing work because they’re scared of infringement lawsuits.

I know some people who are pscyhed for this thing, but a lot more people I know are gonna be fucked out of their work. If it passes, it’ll completely change a lot of industries. The best bet would be then would be to drop out and start up one of the registries.

But if you want to complain, you can easily find the right person here.

A flyer war is being waged against The Box doorman

So my post the other day about a Page Six Magazine Box feature being bullshit has been picked up at Down By The Hipster, a nightlife blog.

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2008
Fans of the Box Fight Back
So what happens when your favorite night spot gets slammed with a bit of negative press? Take the offensive. Ray LeMoine decries Joshua David Stein’s article from Page Six Mag, calling it a sham from the very start. LeMoine begins by saying, “I don’t know if they have fact checkers at the NY Post’s Page Six Mag, but yesterday a story ran about The Box where the first sentence was a lie.” As for the belief that the club may be slipping, LeMoine is adamant that the opposite is true, stating:

“In truth, The Box is actually better now than a year ago. The owners have put together a more fluid show, one without boring filler acts. And the crowd is more downtown than a year ago. After Box-owner Cordell Lochin was locked up for drug trafficking, Serge Becker, another owner, hired Christian Alexander. Christian lives in the LES and is tied to downtown’s art, music, fashion, and media circles more than anyone who’s ever worked at the Box save Hammerstein. Lochin was known for his celeb-ties, whereas Christian is the guy celebs come to for a unique egalitarin NYC vibe. Now on any given night you’ll see a Supreme-type with a bartender from a local spot hanging with Ally Hilfiger and Robin Thicke.”

That’s hot. That’s so so hot and cool. But is it true? Our experts say possibly not, with a Little Birdy saying that while some musicians are still showing up to get on stage, the overall celeb buzz has dried up drastically. This debate is far from over, but maybe that is true for The Box too.

I wonder who this Little Birdy is? I can list seven people who hit The Box either nightly or tri-weekly who would counter her claims, but whatever. As I wrote in my original post, on Saturday alone Drew Barrymore, Eve Mendes, Ashley Olsen, Josh Lukas, and Anthony Andersen were all in the building.

As someone pointed out, The Box has created a whole new level of hater. When was the last time one nightclub created so much press, most of it hate-filled? Bungalow 8 never had to deal with this. Maybe that’s because haters don’t hang in Chelsea like they do the LES? Who knows?

On top of all the blog/media hate, The Box is also facing a flyer campaign against it’s doorman “Gans,” as reported in NY Daily News yesterday. Supposedly, the guy eats his own feces and touches little boys. Haha…

All I can say is, go to The Box and tell me it sucks, that there are no celebs there, that you didn’t have the weirdest night of your life, etc. But haters can’t get in. Lacking access to the teat, the rejected hate on a level never seen before in nightlife…

Med Agency was the first website on earth to relay word that Obama’s PA concession speech had been invaded by a triplet of Abercrombe and Fitch dick faces. Lissa-Moon pointed out that AF’s HQ is in Columbus, OH, a few hundred miles away from Obama’s Evansville, IN, rally. Several fashion industry folk wrote to tell me that this was likely a conspiracy. If so, congrats AF—brilliant move.

Let’s guess how much ad value AF squeezed out from 20 minutes of airtime on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX. It was 10pm est and each network had at least a million viewers. I’ll say 5 million total, which is surely a low estimate. A 30-second commercial costs $600k for American Idol Wednesday, which averages 20 million viewers. So 1 minute at 5 million viewers would be about $300k. Times twenty: $6 million. Add in the post speech coverage and online downloads of the shirts with Obama, and that’s at least $10 million in free advertising. What a coup!

On a night when Obama lost, AF and the date-rape/white supremacist culture it promotes won huge…All heil the Aryans!

Left, Arayans circa 1936, Munich, Der Fatherland. Right, Abercrombie’s Kampf.

As Pennsylvania gears up to hit the polls tomorrow, here are some pictures from Philadelphia taken over the weekend.

Left, the aftermath of Obama’s central city rally, attended by 35,000 (Geoff Kenyon). Right, Philly twilight.

Right, Obama fans. Left, Phllies fans.

Left, Obama in Paoli, PA (MacKenzie Lewis). Right, driving in Philly.

Left, sketchy Blackwater dude doing volunteer Obama security. Right, the Blackwater coin the sketchy dude gave me. (Sorry about poor photo quality.)

On Saturday I went to see Obama on his whistle-stop train tour through Phildalphia’s mainline suburbs. After parking, I’m cruising through the parking lot when I see this Secret Service looking guy. Upon closer look, I notice he has a Blackwater pin on. Blackwater are mercenary private contractors best known for their slaughter of civilians in Iraq. Shocked, I asked the guy if he was working for Obama.

“No, no. Not until it gets hairy,” the guy said. We chatted for a minute and he gave me a cool Blackwater coin that says “In Support of Freedom and Democracy Everywhere.”

Weird…I guess he was just a citizen on patrol, a C.O.P., ala Police Academy 3.

Obama and Sen Casey in Paoli, PA, on a train tour—the first railroad event of 2008 campaign. Pic by Geoff Kenyon.

Left, she looks A-list to me. Right, Joshua David Stein. Note: Don’t send geeks who wear rugby jerzees and have cool spike haircuts to places they can’t get in or get interviews then expect true stories.

I don’t know if they have fact checkers at the NY Post’s Page Six Mag, but yesterday a story ran about The Box where the first sentence was a lie:

On a recent Monday, rounding past one in the morning, Simon Hammerstien sits at a booth at his nightclub The Box…

Whoops…The Box isn’t open on Sunday or Monday.

The story, which isn’t online, was written by ex-Gawker Joshua David Stein and is a hate-festivus that misses so much I’m about to get all Jack Shafer.

Let’s start with the story’s intro: “The Box has lost its A-list cachet.” Yet Sunday morning at 4am, just as the NY Post’s Sunday late edition was getting off the presses, I received a text from a person at The Box saying, “Ashley Olsen, Drew Barrymore, Eva Mendes, Josh Lukas are here…” I don’t know who Josh Lukas is, but the other three are A-list, no? And in the last month alone, Snoop Dog, Mos Def, and Raekwon have performed for free at The Box. No other place in NY could get those guys onstage for less than $5 g’s a piece.

Further in, Stein writes: “But barely into year two, bankers, models, and corporations are precisley what’s keeping the Box open.” Then Stein lists JP Morgan and JC Penny events being held there.

Some scoop, man. Oh wait, a year ago The Box was hosting these same corporate clients at a rate of $7-15k per during the early evening. And at night, despite what Hammerstein and co were saying, the crowd was a banker-model bonanza earning around $50,000 in table charges on Fridays-Saturdays.

Of owner Simon Hammerstein, Stein writes: “In 2004 he directed the off-Bway musical The Passion of Geroge W Bush. Yet he prefers the sexy, dirty, monied world that the thaeter didn’t offer.” Incorrect sir! When The Box opened, Hammerstein and co tried to offer a more topical show but fucked up people wanted sex and more sex. Originally they even planned to stage Jack Kerouac’s long lost play.

Stein adds that Hammerstien’s next door apt is where the after hours party occurs. There may be some truth to this, but it’s accepted that the Box itself is an all-morning-long party. I was there last weekend at 5am while Cee Lo and a hundred others ran wild.

More shoddy reporting: Stein claims from a “nightlife insider” source the show costs “20-30,000 per week” though the owners have been on record saying the cost is $60k. Google—try it, you can search for…information.

As for the death of The Box as an A-list destination, Stein’s main Box-insider quotes come from a former waiter. But a Box regular sent me this text yesterday: “despite the propaganda regulars include zz top, the schnabel kids, bono, mos def, kayne west, nas, countless socialites, sean avery, jeremy piven…” and on and on. ZZ Top and Sean Avery?

The story’s final quote is from Page Six reporter Corynne Steindler, which is like The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny asking Maureen Dowd for an Obama quote: “Celebrity sightings have gone down and there’s been a change in the feeling of the crowd. It used to be young, gorgeous, and srty. It was a club for creative hipsters. Now anyone with money for a table can get in.”

But that’s wrong on almost every point. First, Page Six has printed more celeb Box mentions in April 2008 than this month last year (PS: Lohan was running wild in NYC this time last year). There has been a change in the crowd, yes. But if anything, the crowd is more arty and downtown now than last year, which I’ll explain below. Finally, anyone with money could always get into The Box.

Maybe Stein felt the need to hate because he was shut down by The Box owners. No one gave him interviews and his descriptions and scenes seem weak—how was he at a club on a night when they’re not open?—if not outright lies. Stein writes: “The Box’s PR flak threatened to splatter this reporter with base calumnies if he dared publish Richard [Kimmel, Box owner] and Raven O quotes.” Is someone feeling spiteful?

In truth, The Box is actually better now than a year ago. The owners have put together a more fluid show, one without boring filler acts. And the crowd is more downtown than a year ago. After Box-owner Cordell Lochin was locked up for drug trafficking, Serge Becker, another owner, hired Christian Alexander. Christian lives in the LES and is tied to downtown’s art, music, fashion, and media circles more than anyone who’s ever worked at the Box save Hammerstein. Lochin was known for his celeb-ties, whereas Christian is the guy celebs come to for a unique egalitarin NYC vibe. Now on any given night you’ll see a Supreme-type with a bartender from a local spot hanging with Ally Hilfiger and Robin Thicke.

It’s a shame that Page Six Mag would issue a bullshit takedown of the best nightclub in NYC (1Oak is cool and all, but it’s no Box), especially considering how many column inches nightlife provides P6. Stein is Jason Blair with a Judith Miller-esque agenda. Sure, nightlife reporting isn’t the Pentagon beat, but the NY Post shouldn’t be printing spite-filled stories with first sentence lies. Stein’s trying to destroy a great place to benefit his career after being denied access by the owners.

Christian Alexander and Zoe Kravitz…

In the conversation / argument over who should be the NBA MVP, some of his Celtics teammates are making a case for Kevin Garnett over Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, and King James. While their argument is understandable I was amused at the multiple mentions of Garnett’s practice intensity:

P.J. Brown: “Just being able to see him since I’ve been here, he’s one of the most intense players that I’ve been around,” said Brown, who went to the Eastern Conference finals with Miami in 1996-97. “His practice habits are unbelievable and unmatched by anything that I’ve ever seen.”

Paul Pierce: “Everything he’s done for the culture of the team, his impact on the game, is just tremendous,” Pierce said. “The way we go about practice every day, the focus on games, spending some time with him on the bus . . . Those are things that can’t be measured when you talk about MVP.”

The quotes reminded me of this legendary Allen Iverson press conference:

At least 9 people died today when a plane crashed in a residential area of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is certainly an event worthy of attention in a country where hundreds died in plane crashes in August and October of 2007. However it is important to note that another 100 planes would have to crash with similar fatalities today, just to equal the amount of people in Congo who will die today from malnutrition and disease.
That’s right, over 1000 people a day die in Congo, and it gets worse.

(more…)

Joe Nelson wrote a classic, funny, somewhat disturbing history of the legendary Orange County Sloth Crew over at Double Cross. While this type of thing has a limited audience, hopefully those in that audience will be as entertained as I was. Growing up in early 90’s Orange County hardcore I missed the heyday of the Sloth Crew and was only able to collect limited amounts of knowledge via oral history, the occasional bootleg videotape, and my membership in the Jim Brown fanclub. From an amateur historians standpoint this post is pure gold.

A few gems from his post:

We were Straight Edge, although we hung with surfers and skaters who definitely were not. Like any Straight Edge kid from any era we also felt we were better then the rest of the normal kids in town. We had that swagger that, unless you’ve lived as a 17 year old Straight Edge kid, you don’t really understand.

Mr. Nelson describes a variety of antics, including:

These were prime time high school days. We were total pirates. I mean just complete hooligans. Our M.O. was to roll into your party, steal your VCR, make 976 calls on your parent’s phone, spray paint O.C. Sloth Crew on the bath room mirror, piss in your dad’s underwear drawer, then blow up your keg with low grade dynamite which we’d get from Mexico, and end it all with some fight with the football team in the street. The normal kids hated us. We were eventually banned from every party in H.B. If we showed up, the kids whose house it was would immediately call the cops, who by then also knew of us. Eventually we just moved the operation to Irvine on Friday night and ran wild down there.

…but Mr. Nelson finishes the post with a bit of self-awareness and humility, stating:

I really hate to think that we were the beginning of the gross Straight Edge gangs which came around in the late 90s. I mean, kids stabbing dudes to death with Samurai swords in the name of Straight Edge is just completely disgusting. Talk about total derailment of a pretty cool train. Those kids in Utah fucking suck and missed the whole point of what Straight Edge is all about. Unfortunately, we sort of missed it as well. I also believe in some ways we were the first chapter of the evilness that came later on in the scene, which is disheartening for me personally. It is what it is though.

Pitchfork Media has been making and breaking bands for the past 10+ years. Some bands that don’t deserve all the credit they’re receiving - Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Vampire Weekend, Destroyer, Colin Meloy Whatever from Whatever hyped Montreal Portland Oakland Brooklyn Austin Boston band. Pitchfork fully understands that they have wayyyy more control over the “indie” music world than is recognized. They have so much power, are able to realize it, and yet still review and rate horrible music as being good music. And then the trickle effect begins - Pitchfork rates the album with rave reviews, followed by the LA Times NY Times SF Weekly OC Weekly, then the little mp3 based music blogs and soon to be extinct printed music magazines - next thing you know, horrible bands are touring the world as the “best new band” of recent times.

Brooklyn - Crap Your Hands Say Yeah…

Montreal - Barcade Fire…

I’m not in a band or even closely tied to the music industry, so why should I even care? Because there are millions of bands out there that don’t get enough press, and few bands that get too much press. I’m sure that I’ve never heard my favorite band in the world yet and probably will never hear my favorite band in the world, which I guess I’m fine with that. But Pitchfork shouldn’t have as much influence on the independent music industry as they currently do. Pitchfork Media is to music is what Urban Outfitters is to fashion & clothing. Both are powerful, bland, and both need to go away.

Yesterday there was a pretty nasty sandstorm in Cairo. It happened to fall on the same day as a (failed) nationwide strike protesting poor working conditions, low wages and outrageous inflation, on top of everything else people are pissed off about. News from about 100km north of Cairo says at least one person was killed in clashes with police and buildings, cars, etc were torched.

It’s no secret Egypt is poor. Nearly half of the 80 million people live on less than $2 a day, subsidized bread is no longer affordable and corruption is rife all across the board. Tomorrow are nationwide municipal elections. The police have been rounding up Muslim Brotherhood members (in the hundreds) to keep them from participating, and now the MB have called for an election boycott. People are pretty fed up and the strike kept Cairo relatively quiet yesterday, but the extreme police lockdown kept people from getting too rowdy in the city. Yesterday will probably be more of the same but the government has certainly been put on notice.

Urban Sahara

According to today’s WWD, a Thursday raid in Queens turned up $5.5M in counterfeit luxury goods. Faux Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci and Prada handbags — 50,000 in all — were confiscated.

Along with the bags, 65,000 pairs of Nike shoes and 6,000 Bathing Ape jumpsuits were also seized. First of all, are Bathing Ape jumpsuits so hard to get or so expensive that you’d buy a budget version on Canal St.? The answer to that may actually be “yes” — Bathing Ape and/or jumpsuits were never really my style.

Knock-offs suck and if you don’t believe me, read Dana Thomas’s Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster (and let me know how it is). By now it’s been well-publicized that imitation luxury goods support child labor, sweatshops, organized crime, terrorism and anything else that would bum you out. But the most important question here is not why we’re willing to throw money at such a skeevy industry.

Rather, it’s why do we have such terrible taste? Of all the things that can be reproduced, we want a rainbow Coach bag that looks like a first grader designed it and giant baby clothes? A momentary lapse in morals can be excused, but we all need to take a stand against the popularization of adult-sized infant wear.