THE ZENFORMATION WIRE: Culture, Arts, and Reviews From Oxford Fucking Ohio's Biggest Dork

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- Bringing back a popular 2007 series because I apparently intimidate the shit out of some of the hottest college students in this here town.

Had a reader's roommate tell me that a supermodel - looking blonde is scared that she's not hip enough (my God, looked her up on Facebook and choked on my coffee...) to roll with yours truly.

Me. Seriously, I'm the least hip person, the biggest dork in town. I drive an old pickup, buy clothes at thrift stores, and spend way too much time online.

I'm a fucking librarian. I just do my thing. But I did, however, get a kick out of hearing from your BFF that you're afraid to make eye contact and think I'm some arrogant Radical Chic blogebrity motherfucker.

~ JASON

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MUSIC: Sounds To Intimidate Chachballs

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WASH, RINSE, REPEAT
Iller Than Theirs
Free Online EP, 2008
[ZIP FILE via Radio Belly]

A few months ago, I gave one part of this stellar New York based act, Tone Tank, a shout-out in a Quotations post for his earlier solo online release.

And, well, the duo of Tone and Kray are back with a dangerous assault on the ol' sound holes, complete with killer beats, lyrics for the working world, and flows so tight you'll pay to download the rest of their catalog.


RADIOHEAD RAINYDAYZ REMIXES
Amplive, with guests
Free Online Album, 2008
[ZIP file and Artwork here]

One of my personal faves of the last year, because it combines to almost completely foreign sounds into something perfect. Amplive brings together the likes of Too $hort and Del the Funky Homosapien to create a sonic masterpiece that redefines international artistic boundaries.


DUMB IT DOWN [MP3]
GO BACK HOME [MP3]

The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
From the album Ten Thousand (S.A.P., 2008)
Available online via iTunes

One of my favorite discoveries this year, courtesy of a North Dakota reader who thought, well, since I like Tom Waits, old shitkicker tunes, Delta Blues, and Old Crow Medicine Show, why not introduce me to Calgary's best kept secret outside of Canada and the Border Badlands?

She described the band's live shows as, and I quote, the closest she's come to being seduced by an upright bass in forever.

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ONLINE VISUAL ARTS: Controversy For Change

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TUBESTEAK EXPOSES OBAMA
Online Series, Parts One, Two, Three, Four
The Super Rumble Mix Show,
via Boondocks Bootleg Channel
By Aaron McGruder and others, 2008

You know, if there's one thing I can't stand, well, it's my White Liberal Elite countrymen who are still running around, living in that "Yes We Can!" propaganda a month after a historic election, completely unaware that the election of the first brown-skinned president in this country means nothing more, at the end of the day, than just another career politician gaining a position of power.

Yes We Can! ... be the last country in the Americas to gain a non-white person as head of state. Even Canada beat us, people. By a decade. I mean, it's not like this day wasn't a foregone conclusion, given that the U.S. is only just now accepting that it's never really been a Nation of White People...

And, Jesus Fucking Christ, get a sense of humor. McGruder, the creator of the lightning-rod perfect Boondocks comic strip and animated series, has thrown the first real satirical punch at the President-Elect with this equally historic web series, featuring an actor calling Obama a sell-out Po-Po, dissing Bush with snarky subtlety, and mocking the Thuggin' Brother stereotype, simultaneously.

Well, ya'll wanted change you could believe in. How's that?

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FILM: "I can Legally download that for free?"

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Ever wish you could just sit around and watch classics like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead or the film noir classic, D.O.A., on-demand and in high quality digital video, right at your desk?

Or that you could find public domain footage of historic events to use in ad campaigns, marketing presentations, or, well, to put together a kick-ass multimedia project for a class, without having to worry about copyright issues? And you're, say, a broke-ass college student? Or unemployed?

Well, thank you, Internet Archive folks, for making life so much easier for the rest of us. I've referred more patrons to this one online source more in the last three months than I think I've ever referred anybody to a single site.

Seriously. And it's legal. Just watch those Creative Commons licenses.

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THE KNOWLEDGE WEB:
That's a Grant-Funded Remix, Yo!

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FOLK SONGS FOR THE FIVE POINTS
Digital Artist in Residence Program, 2008
The Lower East Side (NY) Tenement Museum


One of the most engaging and unique interactive online museum exhibits ever, the Folk Songs for the Five Points project was created in association with the Tenement Museum's Digital Artists In Residence Program (DARP).

Folk Songs for the Five Points truly is what it claims to be: a celebration of cultural diversity and change, using “folk songs” as a metaphor to explore immigration and the formation of identity in New York’s Lower East Side.

I spent a good four hours fooling around on the site and, yeah, I'm still loving the use of interactive maps and recorded sound to create a self-interpretive aura, one without any answers or definitions but with enough emotional pull to allow for a wonderful user experience.

DARP, one of the most intriguing and dynamic digital media residency programs in the world, is funded through grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and other organizations. The Five Points project represents the first phase of the The Folk Songs Project.

One of the coolest things about being a librarian, by the way, is the fact that I get paid to play with stuff like this.

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THE ZENFORMATION WIRE: Random Web Reviews for Random People

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BOHEMIANS 2, PROSTITUTES 0:

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WHORES & WHOREHOUSES...
[YOUTUBE VIDEO]

Miz BoheMia's Rhapsody

The Bay Area's most famous homesick Spain Dweller Goes Gonzo on European Sex Trade as only she can.

SPAIN (ZP) -- There are very few bloggers out there that can leave me speechless.

Homegirl MizzyB does it constantly.

I've been trying to leave a comment for days regarding this video, but I almost piss myself every time she says the word whores.

A few months ago, she began including video content on her blog, documenting her day-to-day life as a mother and wife to her very chill husband, known only as Loverboy.

The video clips, which Miz Bohemia hosts through YouTube, provide a unique, truly original look at the life of an ex-pat struggling to find a way back home to California, come to grips with various family issues, and, well, even exploring the world of dental repair and chickenpox in ways only a former Bay Area resident can.

Every once and a while, MizB posts a vid to her YouTube account that explores the cultural differences between her more progressive, multinational background and typical life in the small Spanish city she and her husband have been trying to escape for several months.

In her latest installment, she and Loverboy hit the streets of her city's industrial areas, seeking to document the region's legal, working class prostitutes. One part Blair Witch Project and part in-the-moment gonzo journalism, MizB and Loverboy cruise around town, camera in tow, capturing stark images of streetwalkers, brothels, and other elements of the Spanish sex trade.

The conversation between a husband and wife, impishly discussing ways to capture better angles and swapping dialog off-camera, is amazingly comical, pure improvisational genius.

It's actually one of the best reality vlog projects I've seen all year, and Miz Bohemia holds true to her blog reputation as one of the most brutally honest and open bloggers out there.

If Hunter S. Thompson hadn't sucked down live ammunition back in 2005, and happened to be a sexy free-spirited yoga instructor with an equally devilish husband, I'm sure this is the kind of stuff he'd define as true Gonzo.

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FINE ARTS...THAT YOU SHOULDN'T VIEW AT WORK:

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GWAR! :: THE OFFICIAL CYBER-FORTRESS OF YOUR LORDS AND MASTERS

Virginia's Legendary Demonic Spawn and How The Wisdom of Oderus Urungus Built One Sick and Twisted Librarian

RICHMOND, Va. (ZP) -- Okay. Cool story.

It was sometime back in high school, probably 1995 or 1996. Three friends and I, having decided that beautiful spring days in Virginia were meant for things more important than stupid AP History courses, ditched class to spend a few days hanging out in Richmond's Shockoe Slip and Shockoe Bottom districts with these girls we'd met at a music store.

We were, in all honesty, heavily intoxicated most of the time. We slept in my friend's rusted-out '77 Buick at night, spending a good portion of our time drinking way too much MD 20/20 and Colt 45 malt liquor. During the day, we'd wander the streets aimlessly. We spent a great deal of time hanging out on Monument Avenue, back before that butt-ugly Arthur Ashe sculpture was erected, the one where the tennis great seems to be beating a group of schoolchildren.

At one point, while grabbing some grub at one of Richmond's awesome greasy spoons (the place is probably a Starbucks or Blockbuster now, thanks to the recent infestation of Yuppie Scum), one of my buddies spotted this very un-GWAR-looking dude sitting at a table near ours.

Oh dude! Dude dude DUDE! I think that's Dave Brockie!

Oderus Urungus?

Naw, the guy from Death Piggy!

Oh shit! My cousin hooked me up with a mixtape with their shit. They were like the greatest Richmond Hardcore band ever!

And being young, stoned, and, well, stupid kids, we didn't realize that GWAR's lead vocalist and Death Piggy's lead vocalist were actually the same person. Before adopting the gruesome makeup and shocking stage antics, Brockie was already a local music legend.

The guy at the table was indeed the Legend himself, the No. 1 Scumdog of the Universe, in the flesh and sans gigantic rubber penis or other prosthetics. Oderus/Dave turned out to be one of the coolest cats, more than willing to discuss everything from GWAR's artistry to his being shocked that a bunch of high school kids from rural Southside Virgina actually knew about the Death Piggy days.

Didn't ask for an autograph. Figured the twenty minutes of conversation was worth much more than any signature. Still one of the coolest days of my life.

I've been a very bad librarian here in Oxford, in the very naked now, utilizing WorldCat's advanced search options to assist the youth of America in locating GWAR-related materials.

Not much out there, actually. Who'd a thunk it?

But check out GWAR's awesome web portal, one of the most creative (and nauseatingly original) band sites out there. Very interactive and fun.

And who doesn't love having to scroll over the fingers of a severed arm (image above) to access a web site's navigation controls?

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MUSIC: KEEP ON RAPPING FOR THE FREE WORLD...

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RAMALLAH UNDERGROUND
ARTIST COLLECTIVE

[RU MySpace Music Link]
Bringing the Palestinian Visual Arts and Urban Music Experience from the West Bank to the Western World

RAMALLAH, PALESTINE (ZP) -- I discovered this site a while back, through a friend. For those unaware, I'm a huge supporter of the global hip-hop phenomenon, as the medium serves as a positive, artistic outlet for many folks in impoverished and/or oppressive societies.

One song currently in heavy rotation in the ZenFo Pro apartment, for example, is the R.U.-produced Amputate [MP3], a rocksteady-driven collaboration between Palestinian emcee Boikutt and London-based hip-hop activists, The Unpeople.

And check out the stellar photography of collective member Mohanad. This photograph alone is worth a view or three thousand, capturing life in a region of the world that's been a war zone for almost a century. Or how about this photograph by Collective member Jana, depicting a grinning child in front of graffiti that reads Palestine = One Giant Concentration Camp?

Like the work of their American hip-hop forebears, The Ramallah Underground takes a simple formula and recreates it in their own image, the image of their culture and issues important to their community.

Now that's power. And that's the real spirit of hip-hop, too.

* * * *

Rap music was birthed in the ghettos and inner-cities of America's poorest communities and, like jazz in the 1960s, has become the beacon of hope and musical medium of choice for protest and expression worldwide.

Who needs the worthless mass-marketed, overpriced shit the American major labels are pushing in Moscow when there's the lyrical mastery of guys like Seryoga, who bumps out out the Post-Soviet beats? And Big Black Boots [check out the video for Opasno at YouTube] gets Slavic asses a-grindin' from Kiev to St. Petersburg.

Africa?

Tanzania still mourns the loss of the late Faza Nelly, a founding member of the legendary X Plastaz. Faza's last music video, completed right before he died in 2006, is probably one of the best examples of how rap music has evolved on the continent, a native-language testimonial on the true face of global poverty.

Or how about Ugandan emcee Tshila? Uganda needs strong, empowered women - all of Africa does. And if there's any one female emcee who embodies this, it'd probably be this Kampala native. If you are brave enough, feel free to watch this video clip.

I couldn't through it without tearing up. Tshila's brand of hope isn't the kind mass-marketed here in the States.

Honestly, listening to the ever-expanding world of hip-hop makes my own country's hip-hop scene look bad. Talk about a collapse of conscience. In 20 years' time, we've seen the mainstream subculture "evolve" from the message of acts like Public Enemy to the almost Amos 'n' Andy aesthetics of Crunk.

While American emcees spent much of last year trying to prove

their worth in Bling, stapling platinum fronts to their grills, and gloating over homes and cars worth more than the GDPs of some nations, Turkish emcee Jonturk was putting together one of the most powerful anti-war protest songs of all time (screenshot, right), an international collaboration that included everyone from Germany's Albino, Irish alt-rockers Cyclefly, Turkish compatriots Sirhot and Elnino, and Greek/Albanian rap act, the Microphone Snipers.

Jonturk and Co. had the downright cajones to create a video detailing just about every major human rights atrocity of the 20th and 21st century. Think Diddy would bother to put forth that kind of global effort, would risk pissing off those affluent neighbors in the Hamptons, the ones who own stock in the very companies that make the war profitable?

In many ways, the parent has become the child. And like many children in the Developed World, it chooses to stay blind to the bigger world around itself, enveloped in a world of self-absorption, too much comfort, and very little acceptance of responsibility.

That may be the enduring legacy of American hip-hop as a mainstream medium. Thank goodness for the rest of the world.

- REVISED April 3, 2007

(Left Sirhot, one of Turkey's big cheese emcees and producers,
out of the graph discussing Jonturk's Refuse, Resist, Say No clip.
Sorry about that.)
~ Jason

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