Auto tune the news rocks....

So the new Auto Tune the News was released a few days ago. #7!! if you haven't seen them, do yourself a favor and set aside a half hour to do so.

Musically, its not as good as #s 6 and 3, but thematically...wow, the meta ironies abound.

The lyrics they interject are for the most part about or a comment about the disparate treatment and conidions of whites and blacks. From there, they go into race relations.

Race relations!

oooh, the ironies.

Firstly, the Gregories and their friend are rapping, which is steeped in Black American cutlture: from the funk rap of Grandmaster Flash, to the East Coast, West Coast rivalry, to Topac to Biggie Smalls, to P Diddy, Lauren Hill, to Kanye West, and on and on. Whats more, its an auto-tuned electronica rap, a style popularized by T-Pain and Kanye West.

This is the musical genre a bunch of white kids chose to talk race relations.

ooooh, and it gets better.

They then feature Congressman Dan Lungren, and his speech on the house floor in which he rewrote the lyrics of "Trouble" from the Music Man. This is an - probably unintentional - homage to white's rap roots, and a time when Meredith Willson profited from the popularization of an early form of rap.

And to cap it all off, the end with setting Katie Couric on auto-tune and letting her run wild. (remind me, next time i need a melody for something, to just auto-tune Katie). Whats her topic? Texting. A Millenial mode of communication. Go figure...i saw a Gen-Y connection and i pointed it out =p

And yet...

this discussion ends playing on a Gen-Y matter/device. And when seen through the prism of the Millenial's Laissez-faire multiculuralism, the three white kids rapping - dressed in their rap/hip-hop finest and spouting "Shawty" - doesn't seem out of place at all.

I swear, this thing is an unintentional college thesis on cultrual integration and race relations waiting to happen.

~M

Srsly Birthers? wtf? Are you moronic, or just pretending?

So, i waited a few days to say anything about watercooler-talk-de-week...indeed, The One Near Colombia, The One In Brooklyn and I talked about it over wings and beer on monday at Barrow St. I'm talking about the whole thing with Henry Louis Gates, the professor who was arrested in his own home. oh, i'm sorry...on his porch.

(heh, you thought i was going to say the Birthers, huh? well. i got nothing to say on them. My forehead hurts with the number of times i've facepalmed over them. well, i'll say that they and Lou Dobbs are freaking morons, and should come back to the reality based community)

I just had one gut reaction to this whole thing: umm...Gates was in his own home. it had been established he was in his own home. established. Crowley had been told and had it confirmed that the home was indeed Gates'. Once the police know that it wasn't a break-in, that Gates had just been locked out and had to force his way in, they have no further reason to be there.

none.

Here's a thought. I pay taxes. Gates pays taxes. Policemen and women are public servants...we pay their salaries. Crowley had no grounds - whatsoever - to arrest Gates. I don't care if Gates was being annoying and yelling at the cops (a point that is, in fact, disputed by the tapes of the 911 calls). Its called the first amendment. These are public servants, and we have a right to let them know exactly what we think of them.

And we have the right to do it without fear of being arrested. Insulting an officer is not a crime, and not an arrestable offense.

So, in the words of Obama...yeah, the police acted stupidly.

Now, you'll notice i have said nothing about race. Do i think Crowley is racist? no. But i think there were racial influences.

lets be honest. the transcript of the 911 call shows that the caller said nothing about the two people "breaking in" being black. That was an assumption on the part of the police when they reached the scene.

Now, i don't think that's racist. that was, partly, them suspecting who was at the scene when they arrived. however, i do think its an underpinning of race relations in this country. Is that sad? eh. buts also reality. And thats where we live.

Unless you're a Birther. Then there's just no hope for you.