Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Zirin on Bissinger v. Leitch, Blogs & The Future of Sportswriting

Costas’s HBO show on sportswriting the other week continues to generate waves of discussion, particularly the segment on new media in which old-school journalista Buzz Bissinger went after sports-blogger Will Leitch like it was a Tapout match and not a, you know, civil discussion.

Yo, great frickin TV, especially for reporter geeks of color like me. (Video is here. Watch the replays on HBO to catch the closing segment on race and sportswriting.)

Bissinger’s vampire weekend attack on Leitch reminded me a lot of the issues Oliver Wang raises in Total Chaos around the future of hip-hop journalism, especially the role of bloggers.

It should be noted that Bissinger is a highly accomplished reporter and journalist–he wrote Friday Night Lights and has scooped mad awards. Leitch is, in fact, an acclaimed author as well, but…well, let’s just say Deadspin–while fun, sometimes, willing to go where it needs going in others, but normally pretty trashy–is not necessarily Exhibit A of his own talents as a writer and editor.

I had a discussion with my editor at Vibe.com about it all. Blogging ain’t going away–Bissinger admitted as much at the end that that was the source of his vitriol. But how is it useful for bloggers to trumpet, as Deadspin’s Leitch does, a lack of “access, favor or discretion”? I was on the fence.

Along comes the brilliant Dave Zirin in this fantastic column that has me thinking, if not yet fully convinced.

I think it’s worth a conversation: Is this the future of hip-hop journalism too? (Or maybe asked another way, can hip-hop journalism really actually get worse?!) Are skilled journalists–and by extension, journalistic skills–an endangered species? Have they become media’s undead? Are outbursts like Bissinger’s a sign of a developing cold war between journalists and bloggers, a just a passing thing on the way to a new opinionscape, or just a sad example of what happens when you forget to take your meds?

Anyway, here’s a teaser from Zirin. Weigh in if you like…

Bissinger’s beef appears to be less with Leitch than with the changing media landscape. Sports blogs have brought younger, more diverse and more creative voices into the discussion of sports. While much mainstream sportswriting obsesses about personalities, scandal and statistics, the blogosphere offers other options. Pining for the past makes Bissinger sound like some 1950s preacher railing against rock ‘n’ roll. In some ways, Internet sports coverage is like rock–there’s bad and there’s good–but overall, it has expanded the confines of the form and content of sports journalism.

Costas fueled the controversy, likening blog commentary to what “a cabdriver” thinks about sports. In the past, he has called bloggers “pathetic, get-a-life losers.” It’s an attitude that’s shared by many A-list columnists and sports personalities, some of whom seethe over the fact that “some guy in his basement” gets to have equal voice–or, in Leitch’s case, even exceed the popularity of those whose once dominated the coverage.

There are sports blogs in every style, for every team, and they have entirely changed the game. Of course, some are repellent, but to swear off all blogs would be like refusing to read the New York Times because you don’t like the National Enquirer.

…

If anything, legacy sportswriters deserve far more scrutiny than the upstarts on the web. Washington Post and ESPN scribe Tony Kornheiser has said that this not a golden age of sportswriting, but it is a golden age for sportswriters. There is more money and fame for those willing to “play ball.”

Consider what Big Daddy Drew wrote on Deadspin about ESPN’s Rick Reilly. “Reilly is what I like to call a privileged sportswriter. I’m not saying he’s rich, or snooty, or anything like that. What I mean is that, in his position, Reilly has access to privileges that you or I, as normal sports fans, don’t have. He gets to go to the Masters, VIP-style. He gets to go golfing with Bill Clinton. He gets to ride in an Indy 500 race car. He gets to walk up to Sammy Sosa’s locker and dare him to pee in a cup for him. He gets to do all that. And that’s why he sucks…. If you’re a privileged sportswriter, you’re experiencing sports in a completely different way from normal, everyday fans. It’s no coincidence the bulk of ESPN’s programming now involves sportswriters talking to one another. They’re the only people they can identify with. You certainly aren’t part of the conversation.”

What infuriates old-school sportswriters is that people on the web are calling them on their privilege, isolation and celebrity. In sharp contrast, bloggers, with their messy passion and sharp interaction with readers, sometimes sound far more authentic.

Read it all here.

posted by @ 8:46 am | 1 Comment

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

It’s Not Over… + Darrin Bell on America-Hating Black Preachers

It’s not over.

We’re all still puzzling over Hillary’s spin that Indiana was somehow a tie-breaker. She barely escaped out of there with a virtual tie. The wrath of the math is upon the Clintons. But let no election results put asunder…

In any case less than half of voters in Indiana and North Carolina were distracted by the Reverend Wright scandals. Maybe we’re smarter than the media gives us credit for?

The last word should belong to Darrin Bell, whose Candorville has been straight killing it this week. These 6 panels–asking the question “If 2008 were 1968…”–are worth more than the hundreds of thousands of words that have poured out this past month.

Click through to see the strips full-size.

UPDATE :: Here’s the links to the rest of Candorville’s week…

+ Thursday

+ Friday

posted by @ 8:26 am | 1 Comment

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Breakin The Law :: B-Girls + B-Boys In Madison


Photo By Robin Davies (under Creative Commons license)

Big shout out to Jarius King, Rock Lee of Rhythm Attack, and all of the b-boys and b-girls–from as far away as Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa, and Wausau–who represented a couple weekends back at the Breakin’ The Law competition. (Video is here and here.) T-dot’s Supernaturalz took it in a close final against Milwaukee’s Motion Disorderz.

Robin Davies’s photos capture the vibe completely. Check them all out here!

posted by @ 9:25 am | 1 Comment

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

How About Some Music? :: Dubwise Santogold + Invincible The Sound Of Young Detroit

Out of the shed for a minute–where I’ve got things cooking at a good boil–to share some tasters.

Invincible :: Shape Shifters

After keeping it hot for Dilla, Sa-Ra, Platinum Pied Pipers, Slum Village, Black Milk and the cream of Detroit for years, Invincible finally gets her own shine. Quiet as it’s kept, she’s also one of the city’s most important young hip-hop activists–and you’ll hear that in her music–but her skills seal the deal.

Get her 3-song single here.

Santogold :: “Your Voice”

If you haven’t heard her yet, she’s worth the hype. I mean, this one’s free, so you can imagine how good the ones she’s charging you for.

Get her album here.

posted by @ 6:19 am | 0 Comments

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

New Orleans and Randy Newman’s "Louisiana 1927"

It’s Jazzfest weekend, and Geoffrey Himes offers an unexpectedly poignant tribute to John Boutte, the Nevilles, the Wild Magnolias, but most of all, to Randy Newman’s “Lousiana 1927”:

“It’s a New Orleans tradition that you can take any music and mess with it,” said Bruce Boyd Raeburn, the curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University. The key lyric is “They’re tryin’ to wash us away,” he said, because it is applicable to most periods of New Orleans history. “It captures that feeling that you’re trying to cling on to your culture, to your life, in the face of this wave of indifference, of racism, of malevolence and of water itself.”

Here’s yet another Sunday prayer going out to the Gulf Coast survivors of Katrina and Hurricane Bush wherever you may be.

Thanks to Ned Sublette.

posted by @ 8:31 am | 3 Comments

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

R.I.P. Robert Reed of Trouble Funk

I’m sorry I missed this news when it broke, but it’s important to let the rest of the world know: one of the giants of go-go and breakbeat music has passed. Robert “Syke Dyke” Reed–the founder, keyboardist, and one of the primary songwriters of the mighty mighty Trouble Funk band–passed on April 13 due to pancreatic cancer.

I was turned onto T-Funk during the early 80s via cassettes, and the sound of Reed’s space-invaders style keyboard attacks (you can hear him going nuts on this Arkade Funk record) that would inevitably key one of T-Funk’s massive breakdowns remain to me some of the most exciting moments in any music I’ve ever heard.

Dyke was a teacher, who kept on sharing his love of music with students across the District and at Bowie State University until the end, and he was an effusive interview, always ready to talk about the evolution of go-go music and his band’s legacy.

Rest in power, Dyke, we’ll see you when we get there.

Check these…

+ Tributes to Syke Dyke at TMOTTGOGO.com

+ Ben Sisario’s obit in the New York Times

+ Trouble Funk’s page

+ Buy Henry Rollins’ reissues of T-Funk’s very first records, including the monumental live set from 1982!

+ A Daily Press obit that cites one of my early enthusiastic reviews of the band

posted by @ 7:05 am | 0 Comments

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

White Voters, Obama, and The 15% Nation

Riffing on this great post from Ferentz…

This past Monday before the Penn primary, Roger Simon @ Politico.com cited a convo with an unnamed Republican leader who put a number on the effect that racism would have on Barack Obama’s candidacy: 15% of white voters would not vote for him because he’s Black.

Simon cited an AP poll that revealed the striking coincidence that 15% of voters thought he was Muslim. He also noted that the same poll allowed that 8% of whites admitted they’d never vote for Obama because he was Black. Simon figured that the number could have been underreported–by half.

Turns out that Republican’s number–15%–might be just about on point.

After Hillary’s big win last night, the NY Times reported this:

The results of the exit poll, conducted at 40 precincts across Pennsylvania by Edison/Mitofsky for the television networks and The Associated Press, also found stark evidence that Mr. Obama’s race could be a problem in the general election. Sixteen percent of white voters said race mattered in deciding who they voted for, and just 54 percent of those voters said they would support Mr. Obama in a general election; 27 percent of them said they would vote for Mr. McCain if Mr. Obama was the Democratic nominee, and 16 percent said they would not vote at all.

So there it is. The numbers are consistent with the AP Poll–about 8% of white voters told exit pollers they would switch to McCain or stay home rather than vote for Obama. Exit polling, of course, is also subject to underreporting.

Assuming the general election is at least as racially fractious as this past month has been, we now know not only that Obama must overcome, we know roughly what the number is that he has to overcome–it’s no less than 8% and possibly up to 15%.

posted by @ 11:46 am | 0 Comments

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Join Us This Weekend For The Jumpoff!

Come join us Tuesday night in Loudonville at Siena College.

And then I’m ending this spring 2008 tour with a big bang, something like the culmination of 4 or 5 years with the ever-growing crew of geniuses.

It’ll be going down in Madison, see what I’m saying? Also, lots of other surprise guests not on the flyers will be in the house.

Click below to download the whole flyer…


posted by @ 6:37 pm | 1 Comment

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

And If You’re In NYC…

posted by @ 6:34 pm | 0 Comments

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

Me And Gnarls B.


Photo: Scott Gries/Getty

Here’s my piece on Gnarls Barkley in today’s NY Times.

Of course we had to leave out a lot of great stuff. Here’s some extras:

* “St. Elsewhere” sold about 3 million copies worldwide. So the buzz on the record in the industry almost outstripped that on the street.

Last summer, Billboard Magazine seemed to capture the feelings of a hit-starved industry when it featured Gnarls on its cover trumpeting “Christmas In July” and touting “The Odd Couple” as the most anticipated album of the fourth-quarter. When Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse failed to deliver either a single or an album by then—the two said they needed more time to polish—no one would have been surprised to find panic in the halls of Atlantic.

Instead, chairman and CEO Craig Kallman seemed comfortable with letting the group finish the record. At a time when one-hit wonders are ascendant and album sales are declining, Kallman agreed that decision was “against the current”. He added, “I think, for us, having gnarls achieve their goals, we can only do this in a way that looks at [their music] in a very traditional sense, as a body of work, as a full-length album.”

* In their riotous videos and stylized performances, they’ve played with what Times writer Nate Chinen calls “miserable exuberance”. The naked lechery of “Gone Daddy Gone”, for instance, became a Kafkaesque cartoon featuring Cee-Lo as a smitten bug whose object of affection, a housewife of the spotless suburban New Frontier, is holding the can of Raid. Even as the green cloud descends, he wears a smile that can light up a room. At the MTV Movie Awards, Cee-Lo performed “Crazy” without the Vader helmet on. He was unmasking the song’s rage and hurt, while wearing a big black cape.

* Their first collabo was on a Jemini song about cars & rims.

* “Surprise” is based on a Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood sample…!

* “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul?” was premiered in late February via a short-lived Youtube video featuring ?uestlove lip-synching the lyrics.

* The quotable Cee-Lo, part 1: “In actuality, [Gnarls Barkley is] probably one of the most innocent things I’ve ever done. I don’t mind saying there’s quite a bit of humanity in it. But it’s equal parts superhero too. All of us can relate to Bruce Wayne’s story as opposed to being in some laboratory and getting bit by a spider. You see what I’m saying?”

* The uncensored Cee-Lo, part 2: “If there was a formula to it, I would cut this interview short and go to the studio. I would be such an asshole!”

Here’s the piece. Enjoy…:

ON a late February afternoon Gnarls Barkley, the duo known for its funny costumes and psychedelic post-hip-hop sound, was unmasked and at rest at a quiet hotel in Beverly Hills. Cee-Lo Green, the short, heavily tattooed singing and lyric-writing half, had just finished a snack of sushi. Danger Mouse, the tall, scruffy producing half, was wiping sleep from his eyes after a head-down nap on a marble table.

They were pondering how their second album, “The Odd Couple,” then unreleased, might be received, given the buzz that it was a good deal weirder and darker than their million-selling debut, “St. Elsewhere” from 2006.

“It’s going to be a surprise for me,” said Danger Mouse, 30, whose real name is Brian Burton, in a baritone you might hear on late-night soul radio. “It may be really big or really modest, I don’t know.”

Clues came much more quickly than the two probably expected…

Read the whole thing here.

posted by @ 4:42 am | 3 Comments



Previous Posts

Feed Me!

Revolutions

Word

Fiyahlinks


twitter_logo

@zentronix

Come follow me now...

Archives

We work with the Creative Commons license and exercise a "Some Rights Reserved" policy. Feel free to link, distribute, and share written material from cantstopwontstop.com for non-commercial uses.

Requests for commercial uses of any content here are welcome: come correct.

Creative Commons License