nonpretentious

The Importance of Being Followed

In my typical heel dragging fashion I’ve waited a week to jump into a debate that is by now probably completely out of the minds of most who were involved.  Although really, that isn’t quite fair to myself.  The subject of the value of followers and their role in my twitter experience as a whole has been on my mind since my entry into the twitterverse on September 26th 2008.  I touched on it a bit on Nonpretentious actually.  In this most recent debate I threw in my 2 cents but i’m sure my words were lost in a maelstrom of @replies.  I’m not writing this out of some sort of need to have my specific tweets acknowledged, but because I’ve had a new personal experience that has changed my attitude on the matter.   Continue reading…

Why Most People Wouldn’t Live With Me: The Rate Josh Wood Story

It’s not because I’m messy, moody, dependent on others for transportation or a food stealer; it’s because sometimes I wake up early to do school work, get hopped up on caffeine and decide to make a website about you while my oatmeal microwaves. This morning as my room mate, the titular Josh Wood, snoozed comfortably one room away I was working to turn his long time friend (the internet) into a tool for his possible humiliation and my certain amusement. I decided to set up www.ratejoshwood.wordpress.com as the realization of a joke I came up with with a friend a few weeks back now that Josh is officially on the prowl again where the community of girls he’s dated, friends who have embarassing information on him, and girls he may potentially date could all mingle and compare notes.

Four hours ago I thought I would probably make the one post show it to people laugh at the post/about and that would be the end but I’ve thought about it more now and I’ve decided Josh is actually pretty interesting. He has done some absolutely absurd things and plenty of less publiciced cool and nice things. As someone who dislikes nothing as far as I can tell, he operates in a weird social sphere that allows him to experience pretty much anything his environment will allow and now that he has discovered flight pretty much anything can happen.

Therefore, I have decided to expand this joke into an experiment. Will people read about this kid’s life? Can I use my posts and the comments of our friends and acquaintances to instill some kind of positive and negative reinforcement over our subject? Will I eventually drive him insane and seriously damage our friendship and living arrangement? I look forward to discovering all of these things.

Why Most People Wouldn’t Live With Me: The Rate Josh Wood Story

It’s not because I’m messy, moody, dependent on others for transportation or a food stealer; it’s because sometimes I wake up early to do school work, get hopped up on caffeine and decide to make a website about you while my oatmeal microwaves. This morning as my room mate, the titular Josh Wood, snoozed comfortably one room away I was working to turn his long time friend (the internet) into a tool for his possible humiliation and my certain amusement. I decided to set up www.ratejoshwood.wordpress.com as the realization of a joke I came up with with a friend a few weeks back now that Josh is officially on the prowl again where the community of girls he’s dated, friends who have embarassing information on him, and girls he may potentially date could all mingle and compare notes.

Four hours ago I thought I would probably make the one post show it to people laugh at the post/about and that would be the end but I’ve thought about it more now and I’ve decided Josh is actually pretty interesting. He has done some absolutely absurd things and plenty of less publiciced cool and nice things. As someone who dislikes nothing as far as I can tell, he operates in a weird social sphere that allows him to experience pretty much anything his environment will allow and now that he has discovered flight pretty much anything can happen.

Therefore, I have decided to expand this joke into an experiment. Will people read about this kid’s life? Can I use my posts and the comments of our friends and acquaintances to instill some kind of positive and negative reinforcement over our subject? Will I eventually drive him insane and seriously damage our friendship and living arrangement? I look forward to discovering all of these things.

Talking To Yourself: The Invisible Tweeter

When I was just a wee high-schooler I got an internship (through quite a bit of nepotism) at a record label.  This internship lasted only a week or two before I was let go.  Apparently there was actually no work to be done there and they decided having too many interns was annoying.  Anyways, that week or two was long enough for me to decide that my two bosses were pretty much the coolest people ever and I followed them on various social sites for a while.  I mention this only because maybe a year after that one of my previous bosses was posting updates on an average of 5 per hour about something called “twittering.”  At first I thought he was just incredibly excited or enthusiastic.  After all, I was sure he led about the coolest life anyone could ever live.  This shouldn’t have been a stretch.  But day after day?  And then he started declaring that twittering was the future.  It took me about a year to find out what twittering really was and then probably another few months and the endorsement of various suicide girls (if you look at the history of the internet this should make complete sense) to convince me that I should be interested in checking it out.  I know nonpretentious writers have been making excellent use of Twitter for a while now but I’ve really only considered it for personal use.

The first thing I realized when i signed into my twitter account was I don’t know anyone here. I can’t think of any real analogy.  It wasn’t like walking into some awkward mixer party because at least everybody there should theoretically have something in common (going to a new school, job etc.)  and it wasn’t like being in an empty room because TONS of people are twittering constantly.  I quickly found a couple of people I was internet acquainted with and began following some of their friends who I deemed interesting but I was still left with the problem that no one was following me.  What incentive should I have to post updates?  The answer should be none.  What rational person would talk about what they’re doing to no one?  Apparently I am not a rational being because I discovered that I absolutely love twittering to myself.  Of course, I like trying to be witty in @response to strangers but I’ve been having just as much fun examining my own actions.  There’s something incredibly affirming about seeing your status in writing.  Not just in writing I guess.  I don’t think saving a word document would be very satisfying.  Is it the possibility of people seeing it?  Maybe that’s it.  I think it is in some way tied to the minutiae of it.

When you get a phone call and someone asks you what you’re doing you have to say “oh nothing.”  even though maybe you’re watching Venture Bros. commentaries and eating some popcorn.  But on Twitter this is just the type of activity people are encouraged to write.  We are supposed to revel in the little details of our day.  The only problem I see with this system is that it implies that we have become so disconnected from those tiny details that we must take ourselves out of that moment and type up a virtual update to enjoy those tiny things.  Instead of asking myself what the point of talking to no one is, it seems that my twitter experience has led me to the question “If I do something and no one sees me, does it mean anything?”

That said I’m still going to keep using Twitter.  Give my tweets meaning.

Friends of the Family Launches – Hilarity Ensues

The internet is full of funny.  This is a fact.  It is home to sites like failblog.org and funnyordie and a million bazillion others.  Sometimes this site even gets a slice of the funny pie.  I’m a big fan of the “digital shorts” format and I’m happy to say that there is now one more place on this information highway to find it.  Enter www.bestfriendstime.com home to Friends of the Family. Friends of the Family is a three man comedy group that makes funny videos.  Like poo my pants funny (not actually though because I’m out of toilet paper at the moment and can’t afford the luxury of laughing so hard I poo my pants.)  If you know about thelonelyisland then you’re familiar with this concept.  Since the site just launched yesterday there are “only” three shorts up in the video section but I’ve been promised more material will follow soon.  All of them are off-kilter and have great turns that I didn’t see coming.  (If they were sonnet’s I would say that they had genius voltas)  The great thing about this site is that it keeps on giving after you’ve exhausted the video content.  The guys; Alec, Greg, Nick, maintain the site like a blog where they post funny thoughts, articles, videos, etc that they’ve made or just appreciate.   Here’s an “acapulco clam disaster” to you gentlemen.

Fast-A-Log aka Fast-A-long

So a couple of days ago

a friend of mine asked me and my roommate if we’d like to participate in a fast during Ramadan and told us that if we did, company sponsors would donate towards an orphan fund.  At Stereocache we are all about the orphans and relatively about not eating (no one likes a fatty.)  I kept a little log for most of the day to record my experience.

The rules no food or water from sunrise to sundown

6:30 – The sun isn’t up yet.  This feels wrong.  I don’t think I’ve been up this early before except for when I’m trying to catch a plane.  I feel like a farmer.  When all is said and done though getting up is much easier than I expected.  This is the first morning this year that I have not fallen back to sleep after my alarm went off.

6:45 – Eating breakfast w/ my room mate.  Haven’t done this in a while.  Kind of nice.  I like drinking coffee without worrying that I’ll be staying up til 7 (this happens more than i’d like to admit.)  I have a good breakfast of churizo on an english muffin with a side of rosemary potatoes.  Normally I’d feel obligated to eat next to nothing for lunch anyways because I’m a hardcore calorie counter and when I eat out and don’t know the nutrition facts I’m forced to assume that I’ve already taken in a bazillion of them.
Continue reading…

Interviews: Benjamin Power of Fuck Buttons

Fuck Buttons have been on a tear this year as acclaim has poured in over their album Street Horrrsing (ATP.) Their live show is a force to be reckoned with and made me reconsider everything i thought I knew about electronic based performances (review here.) Benjamin Powers is one half of this dynamic duo (Andrew Hung being the other) and he was kind enough to take some time out of his day to answer some questions for me.

SC: What is Fuck Buttons’ greatest fear?
BP: heights and moths

SC: Does a Fuck Button have natural predators?
BP: not as far as i’m aware

SC: Least favorite interview question
BP: “why are you called fuck buttons/ explain the name”…etc.

SC: Best question anyone ever asked
BP: what came first, the chicken or the egg?

SC: What type of a producer was John Cummings? Hands on or of the “just push the record button” school of thought?
BP: john was a great producer. we asked him to work on street horrrsing with us as we were convinced he would be able to capture our live sounbd on record and he did just that. as neither of us are particularly clued up when it comes to studio recording, john took control and we’re extremely happy with the results

SC: How does your writing process work? Are some songs more the product of one member or are they pretty evenly weighted. Do either of you have a particular specialty or trademark? Basically, would Fuck Button scholars of the future be able to pick out your individual contributions?
BP: there isn’t a set role for either of us, when we jam and write music, we do it together. it’s not like one of us writes on their own at home and the other then adds to it. our music is the result of heavy jamming and experimtenting with whatever instrumentation we can lay our hands on
Continue reading…

Interviews: Benjamin Power of Fuck Buttons

Fuck Buttons have been on a tear this year as acclaim has poured in over their album Street Horrrsing (ATP.) Their live show is a force to be reckoned with and made me reconsider everything i thought I knew about electronic based performances (review here.) Benjamin Powers is one half of this dynamic duo (Andrew Hung being the other) and he was kind enough to take some time out of his day to answer some questions for me.

SC: What is Fuck Buttons’ greatest fear?
BP: heights and moths

SC: Does a Fuck Button have natural predators?
BP: not as far as i’m aware

SC: Least favorite interview question
BP: “why are you called fuck buttons/ explain the name”…etc.

SC: Best question anyone ever asked
BP: what came first, the chicken or the egg?

SC: What type of a producer was John Cummings? Hands on or of the “just push the record button” school of thought?
BP: john was a great producer. we asked him to work on street horrrsing with us as we were convinced he would be able to capture our live sounbd on record and he did just that. as neither of us are particularly clued up when it comes to studio recording, john took control and we’re extremely happy with the results

SC: How does your writing process work? Are some songs more the product of one member or are they pretty evenly weighted. Do either of you have a particular specialty or trademark? Basically, would Fuck Button scholars of the future be able to pick out your individual contributions?
BP: there isn’t a set role for either of us, when we jam and write music, we do it together. it’s not like one of us writes on their own at home and the other then adds to it. our music is the result of heavy jamming and experimenting with whatever instrumentation we can lay our hands on

Continue reading…

Kill Your Idols

One of the best things about being a college student who lives near campus again is that (a) companies think/hope that you have access to money you don’t deserve and (b) don’t mind wasting it and they (c) know exactly where to find you in order to lure you into spending all of your magic plastic card/discretionary money.  The most recent company trying to woo me right now is netflix who was kind enough to send me free trial promotion code.  This isn’t that remarkable (I found out anyone can try the service free just by visiting their site) but it is a revolutionary idea to me.  For this month I can not only watch hard to find movies that ultra foxy film student girls tell me to check out but I also have access to a ton of music documentaries that I would have never found in a rental store and some i didn’t even know existed.  The past week or so has also taught me that the U.S. Postal Service can haul ass when it wants to.  Netflix has one built in caveat though, the service can only be as good as the movies you choose to watch.  I have come to call this “The Kill Your Idols Fallacy.”

When Kill Your Idols popped up on my recommendations list I for some reason (perhaps it was the damn title) thought that this must have been the Sonic Youth affiliated documentary project that I’d heard about a while back.  I wasn’t right but I actually wasn’t all that wrong either, as Thurston Moore did pop up eventually.  Scott Crary’s Kill Your Idols has an interesting premise at its core; present the original cast of the No Wave scene in New York and put them up next to New York’s current post-punk avant scene and see how it stacks up. Continue reading…

Dichord Joins The Party

First of all I should say that I’m very happy to be here at nonpretentious. The name says it all. These guys are covering all the bases and in a great and accessible way. I can already tell that I’ll probably be spending more time than I should on this site checking in on what everyone else is doing. I’ve just returned to Dallas Texas to finish my degree and that means that I am 1) going to have a rather limited amount of free time and 2) am officially a no good free-loader again. Yup, I’ve got no car, no bed, no computer, and no desk out here. Last week i walked around my apartment complex with a borrowed lap top begging people for their wireless internet passwords so i could get my blogging fix. My computer situation will be changing but not for a week or two so my entries here should become a little more consistent in the future. But if you don’t hear from me internet it’s not that I don’t love you, I’m probably out there trying to beat up some kid and take his laptop.

There has been one consolation to my new immobile lifestyle and that has been the Dischord online store. Continue reading…