Come on. I spend two hours reminding myself how I should hate my girlfriend, buy moderately priced new cars to reassert my masculinity, and check out GoDaddy! for HOTTT Web-only videos…only to be utterly emotions-slapped by a GOOGLE commercial all about finding love in a foreign land. (And not aborting the baby — Tebow approves!) You made me cry, and now I’ve got to drink twice as much Budweiser Golden Wheat just to break even on the man scale. And probably buy stock in Doritos, too. I hate Doritos!
Your striking, poignant storytelling? It’s killing me. Fuck you, Don Draper.
Love,
Henning
PS – Those Volkswagen and Late Show ads you did were also pretty good. Grizzly Bear is totally this year’s Phoenix!
Recently I’ve been exposed to the creative juggernaut that is: Ke$ha. Before you say you’ve never heard of her, stop… you have. And if you haven’t you’re probably someone who still considers the Moody Blues a contemporary artist. In 2010, Ke$ha has already been busy breaking music industry records. I consider this about as impressive/telling as setting a new hi-score in Contra, Paperboy, or any other game on a long outdated medium, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. Just about a week ago, she set the record on Billboard’s Pop Songs radio airplay chart with a mind-numbing 11,224 plays inside of one week. What does this speak less highly of: commercial radio or mankind at large? Let’s pause to digest the magic that enabled the young, blonde artist to become the 12th woman in history to “…send her debut single and album to No. 1 on the Hot 100 and Billboard 200, respectively” (Billboard.com):
Occasionally DJ Steve and I work up the courage to leave the comfortable glow of our computers and actually, you know, go outside. Turns out there’s an exciting and unpredictable world out there! LIFTING FOG LIVE is where we catalog those real-world adventures and move from the realm of “I found this online” to “I did this for real.” Hold onto your butts.
FOR THOSE CONCERNED: THERE ARE NO SPOILERS IN THIS POST
It was really something of a special DHARMA treat — and an amazing case of cosmic fate — that I was in Oahu, HI and on Waikiki Beach Saturday night for the world premiere of LOST’s sixth and final season. The last one! No more! After five years of loyal viewing and a fruitless number of hours spent researching quantum physics, I was finally granted the chance to come face to face with the show’s cast and crew…and, of course, to watch the first hour of Tuesday’s season premiere. You say you haven’t seen it? I’m sorry! It’s all too appropriate that a show founded on dividing viewers keep the tradition alive as it nears the finish line.
But forget the fact that I now know more than any of you about Kate hooking up with Locke, or Frogurt turning out to be the Smoke Monster. Saturday night wasn’t about lingering questions, BROTHER, but about celebrating a show that’s come to represent so much more than just a great mystery story. 10,000 NERDS, all nerdier than me, were in attendance at the event. An absolutely nuts amount of nerds (I’ve got the photos to prove it!), and something that speaks less to a “great turnout” than it does a sense of community and shared cultural experience; a tie that, even though rooted in something fictional, means quite a bit to a great many people.
I’m on an island right now 2500 miles from the continental United States, where Internet access is conducted via pineapple modem and news of Paul Newman’s death has only just reached people’s ears, but everyone — from the lowliest hula dancer to the kingliest pro surfer — is talking with the fervor of any young urban professional (that’s YUPPIE) about Apple’s latest God device, the iPad. IT’S HERE! AND WE’RE ALL ABSOLVED OF SIN!
While Apple is no stranger to idolatry, the amount of attention paid to this thing is just sort of staggering. We’ve spent the morning following Steve Jobs’ presentation. Then summarizing all that we’ve learned. And now, over on Twitter, we’re practically convulsing with our need to share those complicated emotions we’re feeling.
Say you made a promise to some people. A very specific and, in fact, easily met promise. That promise goes unmet for three months. Those people (for the purposes of this post let’s call them “fa”– who are we kidding, “fans” is just ridiculous!) wait and wait. In the cold. In the rain. When they finally give up on you, they give up HARD. You’re considered “dead”; “a liar”; even “Stalin-esque” by some of the crazier elements of the bunch. So what do you do when you finally try to fulfill that long-forgotten promise? What can you possibly say that eases the pain of those lost months; rebuilds bridges you had so carelessly burned down and PISSED ON as you quietly walked away? Nothing, really.
Except “EAT IT, HATERS, WE GOT NOTHIN’ TO APOLOGIZE FOR.” (And “CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR AN AVATAR REVIEW.”)
As of last week, Vampire Weekend released their follow up to 2008’s self-titled greatest hit. If you’re like me, you picked up the new “disc” just last week on the release date but most of the Western world have been listening to leaked tracks from it since at least a month after their first album was released. In the indie world, Vampire Weekend is as hyped as they come. For a band that has managed to garner a serious following in a few short years, their songs are often characteristically uncomplex; exercises in capturing the spirit of a Woody Allen film from the 1970s, a time when none of the members were born yet. If you can believe it, there was a time a few years ago when Vampire Weekend was nothing more than a whisper of Columbia University English majors, buzzing with an excitement not felt since word spread about whatever bullshit band came before them. But now, the band can boast several tours and two full length releases in the last three years. None can doubt their formidable presence in the collective consciousness of college frat bros and Brooklyn hipsters alike.
With Contra, Vampire Weekend has done the unthinkable: they made a sophomore album with only a tinge of sophomoric-ness. I would have said it was complete devoid of all sophomore release clichés until “Run” came on, horns a blaring. But the beauty of the band and their songs can be found in the drastically understated choice of album art this time around (see picture, right, click for bigger image). To me, this image captures the essence of the band and the album in many ways. The girl, young and beautiful, seen here in a moment of half-surprise. Her half-popped, yellow Polo an example of restrained high-class culture and leisure. The mildly bemused expression on her face seems to suggest a passive relationship with the rest of the world in love with her. This is Vampire Weekend: young, talented, brimming with irony and offering a whimsical music catalog to the world with a casual sense of self-awareness but not without an air of arrogance.
Through new interviews with detainees, startling new techniques of interrogation have been discovered from the halls of Guantanamo Bay. In my long standing career as a Qualified Torturer of Sisters (QTS), I never realized the American government was utilizing the same tactics. New information reveals that prisoners were forced to listen to a range of American music at loud volumes, including the Sesame Street song!? BRUTAL. And here I am as a young lad thinking this kind of audio assault was only useful at detaining my sister in her room. Here is the list of music used, via CNN: Gitmo Playlist.
Judging by the tracklist, it’s clear that the songs were selected well before 2009, with possible evidence to suggest they were selected as far back as 2000. Who is this mysterious “Limp Bizkit” band? There is no evidence of their existence today. Also, judging by the range of genres used, it’s clear that it was created before the advent of the Genius Mix. The Bee Gees on the same mix as Saliva? iTunes wouldn’t stand for such injustice today. What’s even more shocking is that the government is clearly demonstrating use of illegal downloading procedures. In 2005, tell me what MP3 store you could find the following tracks:
The Barney Theme Song
“Meow Mix” Jingle
The Sesame Street Theme Song
Uhhhhh, using LimeWire to speed up the interrogation process much, George W.? I’m with the rest of the bleeding heart liberals on this front: Guantanamo Bay needs to be closed, if only for introducing foreign nationals to some of the worst examples of American music EVER. Chalk this one up to “Why They Hate Us“, Fareed Zakaria; if I had to listen to (Hed) P.E. more than ten seconds a day, I’d start reevaluating my allegiances as well.
My guess is that by this point in time, anyone still bothering to read the Fog is either looking for porn in the wrong place (sorry!) or a Nintendo geek… or both. In case you haven’t noticed, the Nintendo loyalty around these parts is nothing short of unending. SPOILER ALERT, this post is going to be about Nintendo, but before you 360 whores turn your attention elsewhere, hear me out: this is not a puff piece. In fact, as a dedicated Wii user and longtime Nintendo fan, it breaks my heart to have to write such harsh things about a company I have grown to love over the years. But I’ve gone quiet for too long. Despite containing a market share of nearly double any of its competitors, the Wii platform has done little to stimulate its fan base on any sort of level. What was the best game you played on the Wii? Oh yeah, Twilight Princess… a LAUNCH title.
The Nintendo Wii was released to eager consumers in the prosperous time of 2006 when people still trusted banks and CNN was still a “news” outlet rather than a mere pawn of social networking websites. Yes, those were the days. On that fateful November day, I waited in line in the freezing cold at Walmart with people like this, anxious to get my hands on some new, exciting video game hardware before the rest of the waking world. And boy was it sweet, taking control of Link in an epic, 40+ hour game that I had yearned to play from the time it was promised to be released on the GameCube. But what have you done for me lately, Nintendo?
Holy smokes! Summer 2009 has officially been over for ALMOST A MONTH NOW and we’ve still got six reviews backed up, their window of relevance rapidly drawing to a close. So without further ado, let’s start with the most aptly titled entry: ‘(500) Days of Summer.’ Kleenexes at the ready!
You know those movies?
Like, “This one was made for me”?
…They read my diary.
When we decide to catch a movie, it’s for any number of reasons. Sometimes we want to see something we’ve never seen before. Or we want to escape the mostly boring lives we lead. Occasionally we might watch something hoping it’ll lend us an air of sophistication (“I didn’t even notice the subtitles!”) or a conversational in at the water-cooler (“I saw Juno TOO, dude!”). We’ve all got our terrible, terrible motives. Ultimately, though, the biggest draw of any movie — and any creative work, really — is the hope that we’ll see something that reflects our own lives. To know that someone out there has experienced what we’ve experienced, or felt what we’ve felt. As cliche and emo as it sounds…to know we’re not alone.
In which we (I) fail once again to produce an actual post, but talk about posts that are coming soon. I swear. I’m really not kidding, guys.
It’s easy to talk. We all say absurd things we can’t possibly back up; make outrageous claims that, given a quick Google search, will most assuredly be proven false. The bulk of us are liars and snake oil salesmen, wrapping our fiction in pretty bows and winking to the audience as we sell a load of crap to naive, trusting townsfolk.
But that is not Lifting Fog*!
We may not be much for consistency — I think I wrote eight times this summer? — but we are truth-tellers through and through, dedicated to fulfilling our promises no matter how long or hard-fought the road to publication. And now, with summer bottling up its last golden rays, the time seems more fitting than ever to let you in on our forthcoming stabs at blog satisfaction. A look ahead:
– Haiku Reviews of Inglourious Basterds, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Funny People, and Up. “But aren’t all of those movies, like, out of theaters?” Umm, aren’t the DVDs coming out soon? TIMELY.
– “The Great NYC Burger Tour,” first announced…half a year ago, will be kicking off with write-ups of M2M, Corner Bistro, and Shake Shack. A feast for the eyes! Or something!
It’s a complicated and scary world out there – one fraught with economic strife, terrorism, and Michael Cera – but in here you can always feel secure. Hello! And welcome to Lifting Fog.
Did a friend tell you about us? A nice man on the street? No matter how you made your way to The Fog, your patronage is deeply appreciated. Completely new to the site? Years of history condensed here for your convenience.
We know you’ve got a lot of choices when it comes to navel-gazing pop culture blogs disguised as records of burgeoning maturity, and we thank you for flying with us. From everyone here at Lifting Fog… you made the right choice. Laughter-filled skies ahead, folks!
Henning
DJ Steve
