Friday, July 5, 2002 -- 08:49 p.m.

If you're like me, you should be ashamed are an open-minded rock/rap/funk fan who ventured tentatively into the world of electronic music eight years ago or so and are just now starting to get caught up. Never fear: Ishkur's there to sort yer shit out and tell you what's what, word booty.

-Nate

Friday, July 5, 2002 -- 01:21 a.m.

I just realized that my parenthetical list of What Makes America Awesome included no female content whatsoever. Allow me to throw in Moe Tucker, Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney, Gilda Radner, Patti Smith (who coincidentally was parodied by the aforementioned Gilda), Roxanne Shante, Kim Gordon and Sarah Vowell. CHIX ROKK.

-Nate

Thursday, July 4, 2002 -- 07:59 p.m.

I suppose I should be sitting here writing something about America and the various cool things said country has been responsible for over the past few decades (Johnny Cash, the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, Maceo Parker, Jim Kelly, The Warriors, Matt Groening, Moon Patrol, RUN-D.M.C., Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike Judge and The Boondocks), but... well, actually, I think I just did. Anyhow, a few things:
1) I am probably going to expand the focus of this website, since I don't always feel like talking about music (especially when I've just finished writing a lengthy record review). Sometimes I wanna talk about comix and video games and movies and cars and books and magazines and the internet and on especially rare occasions even television. This will probably mean changing the masthead ("Nate Patrin's Pop Culture Blog" or whatever), though this will be mildly irritating since I'm not all that Photoshop-happy right now. I should mention that I've been reading Pop Culture Junk Mail, which has easily replaced the increasingly didactic Lileks as my favorite source for Minnesota-bred culturata. I take that site as an inspiration, which doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to start ganking stuff from it so settle down.
2) Prelinger is a man who has tons of weird old educational and industrial films. Prelinger allowed the Internet Archive to store a lot of these movies on their website. Prelinger RULES. Check out the list of available movies here and, if you have the drivespace and the bandwidth, get yourself some of the good stuff: a handful of weird satirical Calvin Workshops films (#Bfl O {ggGX = STwWcfl x 2s4 involves chimps and is thus highly recommended), the stop-motion car-wreck extravaganza Live And Let Live, the bicycle safety mindfuck of One Got Fat and anything from the 1970s, the Decade Of Perpetual Weirdness.
3) Thanx to ILM for this: The Amazon customer reviews of Henry Raddick. Not quite as involved or hilarious as Chris Bickel's Epinions insanity but worth a look anyways.
4) Like wrestling? Like take-no-shit Southerners? Like crazy-ass rock and deconstruction of religious fanatics and tales of intrigue and action? No? Tough. Visit The Confederate Mack anyways. It's the only website I know of that includes both a Dixie flag motif and several "25 Best Hip-Hop Jams Ever" lists (most of which prominently feature the Geto Boys' "Mind's Playin' Tricks On Me"), so you got somethin' there.

-Nate

Wednesday, July 3, 2002 -- 09:49 p.m.

I feel really weird defending Eminem right now, for a number of reasons: 1), I really talked a lot of shit about him a few weeks ago; 2), "fag" "bitch" "kill you" "drugs" etc., 3) The Eminem Show has its moments but doesn't really sustain my interest for some reason (my guess: the beats. Hey, Em's lyrics are still sharp but El-P is still the #1 double-duty MC/Producer whiteboy out there in my admittedly indie-centric book). But I'm sorry, even though I am not in my gehr-ahge I still have my Bullshit Detector, and I am about to throw down a little challenge. Oliver Wang, Laura Sinagra, Jim DeRogatis, Richard Goldstein, Michael Goldberg, I can understand and sympathize somewhat with all y'all's consternation over the aforementioned "fag" "bitch" "kill you" "drugs". I do agree that such sentiments are not exactly the things I look for in a record, which is why I prefer "If I Had" exponentially over "Kim" (though I gotta admit that "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" is good for a bit of occasional sick-humor indulgence). But seeing as how I know how all of you writers are so adamant about our pop stars being gay-friendly and not harmful to women, I will offer you a challenge. It goes like this:

1) Go to your CD shelf, record cabinet or wherever it is you store your music media.
2) Depending on how you organize your music, make your way over to where you store either the "S"s, the "N"s, albums released in 1977, or next to your beat-up 20 year-old broken turntable.
3) Contingent on the nature of when and where this particular media was pressed and released, look for either a pink-and-green or yellow-and-pink CD case, LP sleeve or (if you're unlucky) casette J-card. The cover should read: Never Mind The Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols.
4) Listen to this album. Pay close attention to the following two songs: "No Feelings" ("Hello and goodbye in a run around sue/You follow me around like a pretty pot of glue/I kick you in the head you got nothing to say/Get out of the way 'cos i gotta get away/You never realise I take the piss out of you/You come up and see me and/I'll beat you black and blue/Okay I'll send you away...") and "New York" ("Ya poor litlle faggot/You're sealed with a kiss...").
5) Rent the movie "Sid and Nancy". This is about how Sid Vicious, who "played" bass for the Sex Pistols, killed his girlfriend. Not wrote a song about killing his girlfriend. I mean actually killed his girlfriend.
6) Throw out, burn or otherwise destroy your copy of Bollocks and any other Sex Pistols paraphenalia you may have -- because by the standards you use to discuss Eminem, Johnny Rotten and company are just as guilty and deserving of your scorn and indignation.
Oh, wait, I forgot: Eminem is a white guy doing black people music and getting a lot of money and selling a lot of albums. The Sex Pistols released only one album and broke up and didn't go six times platinum so I guess they're okay. Never mind.

(For the record, I do like the Sex Pistols, but hey: calling Moby a fag is one thing -- fucking with the New York Dolls is a lot worse.)

-Nate

Monday, July 1, 2002 -- 09:16 p.m.

Shameless self-promotion: I wrote myself some stuff about DJ Shadow's new rekkid on southsidecallbox. Be there. Aloha.

-Nate

Monday, July 1, 2002 -- 09:00 a.m.

Great, as if we don't have enough unfortunate events to associate with 9/11. (Just kidding, S-K fans! I like a couple of their songs. Rilly I do.)

-Nate

Monday, July 1, 2002 -- 08:57 a.m.

"The esoteric and independent-minded artists need to come first in alternative papers not burdened by the “family paper” tag. However, this doesn’t need to be at the expense of alienating readers uninitiated to the indie scene, and it should also not translate to alternative weeklies being forbidden from celebrating the accomplishments of mainstream artists cranking out quality product.
I swear to god this is not me writing under a pseudonym.

-Nate