all the news that print will fit.
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| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004 np: the gun club - fire of love there are three things i want to get at here, so get a snack and get comfortable. i was going to post about this last night (or even monday, when it would've been more immediately relevant), but time, sleep and the internet have blockaded my attempts. it was very fitting, and from what i've read mostly intentional, that the first day of gay marriages in massachusetts would coincide with the 50th anniversary of brown v. board of education topeka. it's something i've touched on before but damned if i won't say it again: i truly believe civil unions to be an example of government trying to enact 'separate but equal' legislation. we can sit here and argue semantics all day. should it be called marriage, civil union, whatever. but much like being consigned to your own school with only people of like condition (something that in the scheme of things means very little, as far as basic rights go, and cannot be helped one way or another - i.e. race, sexual orientation, sex, etc.), so goes being given 'same thing/different title.' brown didn't say that black students had a right to go to white schools because their schools were inferior; that didn't matter. they had the right to go because to separate them at all made them inherently unequal. the high court was also afraid of how it could affect the students themselves. what does it mean to be told you can't go to the school four blocks up the road because of your skin color? how would that affect you? it would (and did) undermine whatever little self-image this nation had allowed and reinforced the idea that you just weren't good enough and never would be to deserve equal treatment with your peers. by the same token, to be told that you cannot get married because of who you fell in love with, well, that's just as devastating. i can imagine this situation not being that far off from those interracial couples who were denied the right to marry because of the color of their respective skins. whether civil unions will have the same rights as marriages is, when we break it down, immaterial. as long as it's called by a different name, it's segregation. i don't have any problems with religious institutions not wanting to marry same-sex couples; that's their choice. but i do have a problem with the government relegating them to second-class citizen status. the government must provide equal rights and equal status, which is why i support government getting out of the 'marriage' business and simply giving civil unions to all couples. let the religious groups deal with marriage. that's their right. - next, this week's story that has really sent shivers up my spine: the draft. things are heating up quickly and kevin drum has this latest bit of dirt. innactive reservists are getting the call. a brief explanation: when you sign up in the reserves, typically you spend 4 or so years on active duty (that's the one weekend a month, two weeks a year thing) and then another 4 or so on inactive duty, which means you are still technically capable of being called up, although you are not training regularly the way you had been under active status. but if you link to kevin's article and read the memo from the military you'll note that between now and june 1st, nearly 29,000 inactive reservists are going to get the call up to active duty in preparation for the third rotation out to iraq. the military is scraping. it's frightening largely because of how this seems to be the last possible step before a return to the draft, and i'm becoming increasingly worried for friends of mine who are active reservists who have yet to be called up. erika, that means you. - and now for something completely off from the rest of this post. the streets' new album, a grand don't come for free, dropped yesterday. it's been, at least for me, a very hotly anticipated album. my love for his first, the rather brilliant original pirate material, knows no bounds and wondering whether it would hold up was killing me. but wonder no longer. mike skinner is the real deal. and the new album is every bit as good as one would hope, if not better. the beats on this album come even a touch more spare than before, leaving skinner's stories and vocals to carry the weight, but despite whatever you might have heard about his 'abyssmal flow' or 'talking' as opposed to rapping, i say bollocks. he's unique, he's different and his conversational style of delivery makes him all the more an engaging listen. there is no one who delivers his lines like skinner and that is one of the most convincing arguments for his merit. skinner is, on a very base level, a story teller and a rather smart one at that. his tales of post-lad day to day are unnervingly on target in their banality. (heh. post-lad..i love that phrase. for those of you unfamiliar with it, do a bit of research into 'lad rock' as a genre and you'll start to get a feel.) it is the brilliant detail and conveyance of these stories that lets him get by. how else can you explain opening an album with a song detailing a story of returning a dvd to the video store, withdrawing cash from an ATM, calling your mother and then picking up a shoebox full of cash? skinner draws you in in a way that average hip hop has long lost its ability to do. there're only so many times i care to hear about bling and cash, threats and 'hoes' before it becomes boring. (usually around zero.) skinner's honesty sets him up as someone you can immediately identify with just because of what he experiences; it's nothing some of us haven't gone through. a grand don't come for free turns itself into a story concept album. track one to track eleven takes us on a day long journey through some things lost and regained and some things just lost. you become very wrapped up in the story as it goes, wondering what might happen and it is a story that actually bears hearing over and over again. granted i've only had it since monday night, but i've listened to the album completely at least three times since then. this, to me, is the truest measure of an album; how often will i turn back to it in the future? is it something that makes me say 'wow, that was really unique and inventive but, strange, i have no urge to listen to it again' or 'where's the repeat button?' the new streets' falls decidedly in the latter. if you'd like, you can read reviews here and here. if you live in the greensboro area, you know where to go to buy it, but if you don't, then please click here to purchase. posted by J. Neas | 5/19/2004 08:42:00 AM
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