THIS IS JUST THE BACK UP PAGE YO

THIS IS JUST THE BACK UP PAGE YO GO TO: http://www.putthatshitonthelist.com

Look at my giant talking head talking about things giantly

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In my never ending cycle of self promotion for my book, Boston’s Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in Beantown I did an interview for The Feast Boston, the NBC/Universal website about things to do in your city and whatever, and they were kind enough to force it down the throats of everyone across their national, I dunno, channels? National channels let’s say. Like here and here and here. 

Go watch it on the Boston one and see me be really awkward, but still look good in a t-shirt, which are the only two things I’m really known for.  Also because we like the editors over there and they do a good job and they had to sit around while I did like 17 takes of this routine before I finally remembered to stop picking my nose and saying “Hodor” after every sentence. 

Thanks to Katy Kelleher and Casey Carbonneau for making me look slightly less retarded than I normally do. 

Insane zombie leopard eats entire village, is coming for you next

SHOOT THAT FUCKER SHOOT HIM Photograph: AP

These pictures of a leopard attack in India (by AFP/Getty Images via the Guardian UK) are pretty horrifying and not really funny at all actually. Especially this one above because it’s a total rip off of the PTSOTL banner image. WTF? I want royalties on that photo that I stole without permission from another artist. That leopard is practically taking money out of my hypothetical babies’ imaginary baby mouths. (Imaginary baby mouths is the theme of a recurring nightmare I have incidentally.)

Photograph: Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images

Do you think dude here is going to see this photo when he gets out of the hospital and be like, “Thanks a lot for the heads up, fucker. You couldn’t give a brother a  ‘He’s right behind you?’ Come on.”

Go look at the rest of the images here. One more insane one after the jump. Hoooooolleeeee Shiitttt.

Is this a super leopard or what? For real, this one looks like the after math of a zombie outbreak more than an animal attack. 

Photograph: Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images

Props to Irish Leo, who shared this link, and is, in a way, more responsible for it existing than any of the photo-journalists and police and villagers actually involved.

The Scenester State of the Union. Feels bad, man. Or does it?

I hope no one at the club is wearing the same bee suit as me. via

Being a super famous scenester no matter where you live is easy. Here’s how: 1) Show up. 2) Be old enough that you’ve been around so long that people sort of have to slouch into your orbit at one point or another or else it would be kind of weird. 3) Say “Hey man!” to people you barely know over and over again. Forever.

That was simple, right? Next thing you know you’ll be living in an isolated cocoon of fashion-forward decadence and barely coherent, one-sided conversations in dark rooms so loud you can barely hear yourself talk over someone else talking over you about their half-formed projects. As one of my musician scenester friends put it recently, which is the truest thing I’ve heard in a long time, “When two artists talk, it’s like a game of Risk to see who takes over the conversation by force.”

Also like Risk in that I usually like to start in Australia. And nobody really knows what Kamchatka is.

Or as Courtney Taylor-Taylor, the Oscar Wilde of people who know their way around the Hawthorne District, once put it “What do you do? Oh yeah I wait tables too, no I haven’t heard your band cause you guys are pretty new…”

Sometimes you want a little more out of your f2f ITL interactions in ‘the scene’ though. Or maybe your s.o. isn’t involved in music or art or media in an direct way, aka has a big person job, and they feel left out of the bullshit dance when you go out together. I was thinking about this recently, if your definition of recently is every single time I’ve ever gone out for the past ten years, and a few questions came to mind.

I decided to put them to a disparate group of scenesters I fart next to at clubs, or I know from around the way, band bros/girl bros, DJs, and just your average hanger-outers from around the country. Instead of editing it into a readable narrative piece, which quite frankly would take a lot of work, and the guy behind this blog doesn’t pay me shit, I decided to just post a few of their entire responses below. You’ve heard of a lot of them, but most of them wanted to be anonymous.

1) Do you feel like you yourself treat people who you meet out in the world that are not involved in music/media/arts differently than people who are? Do you think the majority of people ‘in your specific scene’ do this? I’m also interested in how this applies to the significant others of people who you know through music etc.

2) What do you think about the idea of peripheral friendship? Meaning, do you think it feels phony to ‘know’ people that you see out in the world all the time without really knowing them? Is it bad to kind of be friends with someone, even if it’s for a span of years? Or do you think at a certain point if you haven’t had a meaningful interaction with someone yet then you are just carrying on an oppressive charade that you are trapped in forever?

Here’s what they said.

 

SCENESTER #1 To your average ambitious musician, or really anyone in a career driven path, your friends tend to get separated into little influential pools that you can categorize as such: true friend, career friend, party friend. And behind all that is the ‘rest of them.’

True friends are the smallest group composed of a subset of ‘old friends’, who most likely came from high school, or the neighborhood you grew up in. You’ve both done your time together in childhood and thus they know you better by sheer virtue of time done getting through life as kids than anybody else. You probably share some deep, dark secret together like you used to blow up frogs with firecrackers down by a scummy pond.

The true friend is the person you call when someone just broke up with you or a close relative has died. They are your best men/bridesmaids types and you often cry together drinking. They stick around.

For someone with upward mobility in whatever sphere of the arts you are trying to conquer, you then accumulate career friends. These are people whom you may mutually respect, people you don’t respect but pretend to because they are influential and, of course, actual powerful people you need to keep close in order to continue getting opportunities that allow you to do whatever it is you do in front of people. These are the tricky bunch.

You probably don’t know their birthdays. You probably don’t know about that time they said something really embarrassing in science class and are still mortified at the thought 10 years later which clouds their interactions with people to this day. You don’t know this because you’ve never cared to ask because you’re spending all of your time with these people in loud clubs, at after parties and other places that aren’t conducive to doing anything other than talking about what you’ve done career-wise, what you’re about to do and how it could be mutually beneficial to the both of you.

The party friend is easy. You slam shots together, slap high five and exchange a good word. You’re totally gonna hang out this week and then you never do because they aren’t in category one or two. They always come to your shows, you have no idea where they live or what they do for a living except that whatever it is, it pays well enough for them to be out drinking 3-4 times a week.

So that leaves the other people. I think I can sum it up this way: Most creative types whether consciously or not look a little askew at people whom they perceive as not striving for something a bit bigger out of life. Most can’t accept the fact that people actually sit behind a desk for 8+ hours working very hard for someone else in order to have the consistent scratch to have a large TV to watch Netflix on. If you boil it down, creatives tend to want to work for themselves or at least be perceived as talented enough to be handed money on the merits of their art. So there is a barrier between the artist and the other person in which the other person is possibly looked down upon or not considered interesting because they don’t base their self worth on their art. Note: this is not a healthy way to live.

People are interesting. All people. To be a good and thoughtful person I think it’s important to give everyone respect. To shut out large swaths of people just because they aren’t part of the perceived counter culture you subscribe to will leave you with a echo chamber of people who think just the same as you. Where is the room to grow and learn from people who have a different outlook on life than yourself? When was the last time that ‘career friend’ or ‘party friend’ called you up to see how you are doing without wanting anything in return? Would they be there to help you clean up a personal mess? No, and you want to know why? Because you’ve never shown them the same regard. Having periphery friends is akin to this sense of personal materialism. You build up a ‘collection’ of people that looks amazing on paper until the thought dawns on you that these are real, actual people with concerns and problems of their own. That’s the basis of why we’re part of a music or art scene to begin with, to make human connections. But once you get a taste of success you want the success for what it is instead of the personal connections that helped you get there in the first place.

This all goes out the window if you want to sleep with anyone of the people in these groups. All of it.

via YourSceneSucks (the lulz)

SCENESTER #2 Yeah, to some extent when talking to people outside the music and arts community you treat them a bit differently. I think each side would normally make an effort to find some sort of common ground to talk about out or relate to. I have a lot of friends in and outside the music community that I feel like I can relate to well and don’t really see it as an issue. When I’m with someone who I can get in depth with about music or gear or anything, of course we nerd out about it, but when I’m with someone who isn’t directly involved or knowledgeable about music there’s still a lot to talk about in a broad sense.

I find a lot of things in music or arts are analogous to so many other fields. I don’t know if I can speak for people in my specific scene, I’m not quite sure what that’d be or if I fit in with it, but I think it’s all about how you approach a conversation knowing the other person.

My girlfriend is an artist and musician. We rarely talk about either…not sure why.

[As for the friendship issue] I really don’t look at it as a bad thing. I think it’s best to always be looking to meet new people and expanding who you know. What’s worse is being stuck surrounded by the same people for years and never reaching out to anyone else. You should always be trying to make contact with new people who seem interesting while maintaining a good relationship with your closest. You’re limiting yourself to what you get exposed to if you don’t.

I’ve met a lot of interesting people in the Boston music scene just by shooting random emails with questions or just talking at bars or shows. I mean, take this e-mail for example. Luke, we’ve exchanged like two Facebook messages and we got introduced at the Boston Phoenix Music awards. I can’t say I know you too well, but we now know we have a bit in common and we can exchange this kind of communication. I think that’s kinda cool. I’d probably say I’m a peripheral connection, but it’s not a bad thing.

I feel like if you’re genuine to people, even if they’re peripheral friends, you can still keep up some relationship. But if you’re standoffish and pretend you don’t recognize them or just bullshit them, then well, you’re a shitty person.

via Fashion Vandals

SCENESTER #3 Hmm, interesting questions. It got me thinking and brought out the sad conclusion that I hardly ever meet anyone new in [my city]. When I do it’s always at some kind of show/party where it’s loud, late and everyone is intoxicated in some way. In those situations, only the craziest looks and most outgoing personalities will stand out, and all the rest usually blur together.

I guess because my whole life revolves around what is the newest, most groundbreaking thing in music/art/fashion, I have a hard time getting interested in people who aren’t creatively inclined in some way. It’s not that I won’t be cordial, but it’s likely that the conversation will end after the exchange of names. What are we gonna talk about? Favorite TV shows? (I do admit I judge people that actually follow reality TV, including anyone who has watched Jersey Shore more than twice.)

I guess in this current electronic music scene it’s not as easy to pick out someone who is ‘not part of the group’ as in say, punk or hippie scenes where outward appearance and dress is a bigger part of affiliation with the group. Hell, I remember coming from the goth scene to [my current scene] and thinking ‘man these people are all norms’, because at that point I would hardly even bother with anyone that didn’t at least have some facial piercings and zany colored hair.

In the case of significant others, I think it really depends on the enthusiasm of the partner. Usually they are part of the fun and when they are I have seen them grow in their personal creativity! Sometimes they are ignored or in a couple cases I have experienced, never brought out to parties by their significant others. Those relationships never last.

For your second question, I don’t think it’s wrong at all to have casual acquaintances, even if they’re someone you see every week. Myspace and FB have sort of created this myth that everyone you know in any way must be your ‘friend’, which mostly just dilutes the meaning of the word.

I don’t expect (nor am I able, really) to immediately connect with every single person I meet, and frankly, people that put all their deets out there up front usually come off as obnoxious. I’m okay waiting for the day when perhaps someone I didn’t give particular thought to surprises me with say, their excellent culinary skills or hyperspecific body of knowledge.

I guess I just don’t consider a specific lack of connection with a person to be a negative thing, just something that is. A potential, even!

Some people are good friends. Some people are good party friends. Some good party friends aren’t great people.

YourSceneSucks

SCENESTER #4 I don’t think we do [treat people differently] I mean, it’s hard to have conversations with people who have no interest in creative or artistic endeavors, just as I am sure people who are mostly interested in sports have a hard time conversing with me. I think that is more just incompatibility of interests.  In fact, it’s usually easier to talk with non-artists because they are willing to let you talk about what you’re up to creatively without edging in.  When two artists talk, it’s like a game of Risk to see who takes over the conversation by force.

I think “peripheral friendship” is the best imaginable situation.  I am both a very private person and a very public person.  I enjoy having a lot of acquaintances and I enjoy having few close friends.  I am not particularly interested in shifting that balance, but I do feel the interactions with acquaintances are just as valuable as the interactions with friends.  In the case of acquaintances, I just have less at risk while I can still have fulfilling intellectual interactions.  That is also why I really enjoy Facebook.  It allows me to have a vague sense of what several hundred people are up to without having to actively interact with them. I don’t consider it a charade.  I think it’s rare, and appropriately so, that someone transitions from peripheral to essential.

SCENESTER #5 Yes, [I do treat people differently]. This has been pointed out to me by my two most recent ex-girlfriends. I don’t think it’s so much that I (or we, because to answer your other question, yes, I think a lot of people in my ‘scene’ do it) treat them differently on purpose, I think it’s more a case of having less to talk about with them. Or it being easier to talk about ‘my stuff’ with people who are interested in the same thing. There’s a shorthand, there are goings on that can be talked about without filling in backstory, etc. I’ve come to the conclusion recently that this is a problem, like I said, it’s been an issue with girlfriends lately. Personally, I’m trying to be conscious of it. It’s not too big of a problem to fix, once you think about it for a few seconds, but I think a lot of people are happy with the insular community they live in and don’t look at it as a problem. It’s pretty shitty. Maybe it isn’t for them, I can only speak for me. And I don’t think it’s unique to music/arts/media, I think everyone does it. Guys that are into mixed martial arts, like really into it, surround themselves with people who are like-minded. Guys who work in finance, guys who are really into hockey. Parents. That’s a good one. How many people have you been friends with that have kids and all of a sudden live in a kid-centric universe? They do parent things with other parent friends and parent groups and treat anyone who isn’t a parent as something less than them. Oh, also Republicans.

Peripheral friendship is really weird if you think about it in just the terms you’re laying out. Yes, it’s phony to see the same people all the time without really getting to know them over time and having the same small talk conversation for years is a weird charade. On the other hand, we’re mostly grown-ups and isn’t that sort of the way things go? You see people all the time in life that for whatever reason you don’t get closer to as time passes – at work, family holidays, whatever. So you see these people and you do a little small talk dance and you move on. It’s an odd thing if you think about it, but I don’t think it’s good or bad, I think it just is. For me, it’s not like I’m not adding any new people to the friend roster. In fact it’s the opposite; I’ve become pretty close to some new people in the last year. I’ve drifted apart from a couple people as well, and those peripheral people just kind of stay where they are. I guess there’s a reason they exist in the periphery, isn’t there?

SCENESTER #6 Not really, although once I know that I’m amongst fellow music lovers I tend to go right to related topics. But I think that would be true of anyone.

What would the world be without acquaintances? There’s nothing at all wrong with simply knowing someone on a “hi, how’s things” basis. It can be comforting sometimes. Obviously we all have our close friends, and the people we always want to spend time with. But there’s nothing at all wrong with being friendly with lots and lots and lots of people.

SCENESTER #7 Man. Heavy hitter questions. (Keeping it anonymous), I do definitely feel like the media/arts/music world promotes an incest-y vibe, which does carry a sense of superiority with it. I think it’s about having the sense that you have something to offer, in a personal sense that also of course extends into the business sense. With my recent [lost job], I think it will be interesting to observe how people might interact differently, now that we’ll be operating as humans without the same bargaining chips.

SCENESTER #8 It’s all an oppressive charade, though, innit? But yeah, I know a few significant others who feel like they have gotten short shrift because they weren’t involved in whatever pissy little microcosm happened to be applicable.

SCENESTER #9 I try not to [do that]. Do people in this circle of artists? Yes. People are are infatuated with status and think it’s a competition. People like that don’t understand why they’re in it in the first place and probably shouldn’t be doing whatever there doing.

Do I feel “just a moment with a stranger” matters? ALWAYS. EVERY MOMENT MATTERS. Everything and everyone is here to learn and teach us a lesson in life. If we don’t learn from them we will run through the same moments with others till we do.

You are who you hang out with. Live for music as a whole and respect others that want the same.

Don’t copy or fake role play, be who you are, you’ll get more respect.

Link Deuce: Kreayshawn, The French, Sugar Water event, Boston is ugly, for assh0les

What the fuck are you looking at, kid? What are you a fucking hardon?

Here’s the part of the show where I just repost things that I already talked about on Facebook. That’s called being a green blogger I think.  Let’s see…

Kreayshawn news!

Everyone likes her over here right? Over there. Where are you guys? 

Couple new joints, as they say, from her this week. First up is this remix of Gucci Gucci from Long Jawns and Bobby LaBeats via Mad Decent. I like the part with the cat meow.

Everything about that link bums me out. Two psychologists did a survey? Who were they? Never says. Another one from Boston College said something to the Boston Globe. Who was it? Whatever. 

Boston is ugly

We’re also the worst dressed city in the world! According to GQ anyway. MORE LIKE GAY QWEEYAH MAGAZINE RIGHT GUYS GO FAHCKIN BRUINS.

I’m going to quote it here at length because I’d like to argue with it. I can’t, because it’s all true, but I’d like to. Can’t always get what you want though can you?

1. Boston

Boston is like America’s Bad-Taste Storm Sewer: all the worst fashion ideas from across the country flow there, stagnate, and putrefy. To be fair, it’s hard to be a fashion capital when half of your population is made up of undergraduate hoodie monsters, including those unfortunate coeds who don’t realize that leggings-as-pants were supposed to be paired with tops large enough to conceal their cameltoes. Yet when they graduate, they can wear their Uggs and still fit in at the country’s largest frat party on Lansdowne behind Fenway, where they can take breaks between body shots to admire just how long boot-cut jeans can stay in style in one place. And any classy lady from Beantown is bound to be impressed by formal sportswear. “But Boston is the epicenter of prep style!,” you say? That’s true, but it’s with a little extra that ends up ruining everything: Khakis!—with pleats. Boat shoes!—with socks. Knit ties!—actually, no one in Boston seems to have ever seen one of these. For the more proletarian-minded, there are the modest little burgs of Cambridge and Somerville, where everyone dresses like the proprietor of his or her very own meth lab. If you wonder how a people can live like this, well, it’s Jurassic Park for fashion troglodytes: life finds a way.—John B. Thompson

Harris

Speaking of Boston, an old Boston indie favorite, Harris, is reuniting this week for the first time in years. Here’s their best song. Still sounds good, bbz. Cool video too.

Poorly dressed my ass

This guy’s ass, actually. Spotted him at the Bastille Day festival in Cambridge the other day. That’s the most French bro I’ve seen in a while. Hey, does anyone know what a French townie accent sounds like?

Also spotted this at the Bastille Day thing. Spreading the brand, babe. OK, so I wrote it, but still. ABB. Always be blogging. Or is it ABGIRLC? Always be generating IRL content? Either one. It is a good Cuban though over at Chez Henri.

Free sugar water events

u look good 2 bb

For some reason Vitamin Water has been throwing parties every night at this art space in Boston, and they’ve had some pretty cool stuff going on. The only thing I like better than sugar, or water, is when you combine the two. And free stuff. And art about corporate brands on the walls.

I used a filter on that photo you guys. I’m not really yellow and neither is the world. Unless you ask my homeboy William Carlos Williams, who said something like 

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

LOL What did he know? 

On the topic of literature, briefly, how about when a novelist includes song lyrics in the middle of a story? Like maybe one of the characters is a musician, or they’re singing a song, and dude prints them on there on the page for us to read? NOPE. #skipthatshit

See what I mean? Vitamin Water event.  Dirty Dishes played. Did I mention we like them?  Vitamin Water is more fun to pronounce like a British person. I should probably make sure you know that.  Here they are via eurogael.

Viva Viva played too. Here they are doing One is the Loneliest Number via eurogale’s You Tube channel.

Anyone who doesn’t like this post is dead to me and has betrayed our entire family. Fuck you.

Buzz blog buzz band blogged about on buzz blog

Not even sure if I care about OFWGKTA any more, (now that all you nerds know who they are) but I shouldn’t have signed the blogger contract that obligates me to mention them at least once a week if I didn’t want to be stuck with them, so my hands are tied you see. Here’s my DEFINITIVE REVIEW of their show a while back. Canonize that shit. 

This new video from Pusha T featuring Tyler the Creator is actually pretty good at least. It’s funny because he’s a young kid, you see.

The most gorgeous photos I’ve ever seen (in a while)

SPOILER ALERT: Look, they’re really friends after all. Does this kind of ruin the banner image for you? It’s ok, maybe the Wolf and Red got an argument after this other photo here was taken and he’s still going to disembowel her in the banner image. Let’s hope so anyway. 

Go check out the rest of the beautiful photos from Israeli Shlomi Nissim here or on his Facebook page here, most of which is in, er, Israeil talk? Hebrew I guess you call it, so I can’t really make out many details about him, although it says here *adjusts glasses* that he “likes” Iron Maiden, Metallica, Bob Dylan, and Lady Gaga, so in that sense he’s a lot like me, if I was lying to you about four things I liked. 

Oh wait, Here’s his website. A bunch more gorgeous photos after the jump, all of which I am posting here without permission and sort of hoping it all works out.