Thinking About Thinking

Just a vlog regarding how much I think, and why I approach the everyday decisions in my life the way I do, particularly with regards to purchases.

I talk about Chiquita Bananas in the video, and this is just one of the few articles I was talking about: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/31/colombia.chiquita.lawsuits/index.html — but like I said, check it out for yourself…don’t just take my word for it!

Political Musings

When you’re elected to any political office, you’re accepting the challenge of representing all of your constituents. There is no single town in America that is completely homogeneous in any area, particularly both political ideology and economy.

Most individuals have some kind of political affiliation that can range from Anarchist to Totalitarian or anywhere in between and possibly even outside the current understanding of the political spectrum. When a representative is elected, however, they undertake the task of comprehending both the needs and wants for all of their constituents, regardless of political affiliation or economic status.

Thinking about these things while watching the just-put-to-rest SOPA / PIPA debates and the flare up over ACTA, I started reading some of the introductory material to one of my Political Science classes (4040). I ran across this in the “Middle East” publication via Congressional Quarterly.

“No member can be an expert in all the areas on which representatives vote, so most rely on their leadership, colleagues on specialized committees, and committee staffs and specialized agencies to provide guidance.”

I found it eerily appropriate considering the always debated and touchy subject of lobbyists, current arguments about the sums of money in politics, and especially the lack of understanding why it seems we elect “politicians” rather than scientists or engineers.

That is straight from the horses mouth, folks — an elected official is not going to be an expert in every single issue area in which he or she is elected to represent. Period. That would be impractical, improbable, and plain old weird to boot. Here’s where lobbyists enter the picture. Don’t get the pitchforks and torches just yet though, because it’s not as terrible as you imagine.

Lobbyists? In MY America?

Lobbyists are a part of the political culture in America and have been since…well, technically, December of 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified. Remember that whole first amendment part where people get free speech, protection for religious freedom, and even the currently contested ability for peaceable assembly? Yes, that same amendment also included the ability for citizens to petition the Government for “redress of grievances”, which laid the groundwork for what we consider lobbying today. Obviously, the ability for huge multinational corporations to pay absolutely ridiculous amounts of money to ensure that laws are passed in their favor was not included in the original text, but nonetheless that is where our interpretation of the amendment has gotten us today.

Perhaps that’s what people find so wrong with it? “It wasn’t the original intent! The Founding Father’s would have never wanted it this way!” You have no idea what the original authors of the Constitution would have said about today’s society — I’m sure many of them would be appalled at some things and delighted at others. No matter what you believe, though, I don’t think you should be commenting on behalf of someone who lived more than two centuries before you did.

Problems and Solutions

So we’ve got two problems that seem to be at ends with each other — on one hand we’ve got these democratically elected politicians in the various State and National legislatures who have varying and diverse constituencies that have incredibly complex and multi-faceted needs. Many of whom just so happen to have a need for expensive political campaigns. On the other hand we have very large businesses, corporations, and industries who are constituents and want certain laws passed.. These players just so happen to have very deep pockets. WE MUST BE DOOMED!

…well, maybe that’s taking it a step too far. Yes, we’ve all heard about the financial market lobbyists or the billion-dollar companies who spent more money on lobbying than they paid in taxes. Those are some pretty extreme cases that definitely deserve all of the attention and scrutiny that they are receiving, because it’s just weird and we deserve to know what sort of transactions are truly going on. However, did you know that Google spent over $9.5 million on lobbying in 2011? What about everyone’s favorite Vivendi, who owns Activision Blizzard, who spent more than $3.5 million in the same year? Dang, even my own University system, LSU, spent more than $400,000 in 2011 on lobbyists in 2011 (We weren’t the highest, but that’s still a lot of money!) I’m not even sure what the hell they would want changed in Washington, but considering the recent budget cuts nearing $30 million; perhaps they’re lobbying for more money. Whatever.

My point is that everyone lobbies. Farmers and agriculture industries have lobbyists in an attempt to make sure laws are passed in their favor. Software, hardware and technology developers / industries have lobbyists to make sure that laws are passed that benefit their industry — or perhaps ones that are harmful aren’t. The healthcare industry has lobbyists on behalf of doctors, hospitals, unions, and pharmaceutical companies.

Congressmen are elected to make choices, and when they’re trying to make informed decisions, they don’t have time to sit down and read the hundreds of often conflicting economic, social, and political impact studies. No one person does, and it’s unreasonable to expect them to. That is why lobbyists and advocacy groups exists — they (hopefully) take the aggregate of as many of these studies, opinions, and data as possible and present a summarized report. They are the experts in their field, no? They have a direct in with the politicians because they’re trusted, “reputable”, and at least somewhat under public scrutiny.

Finale

So why don’t we just elect the experts, then? We’ve got thousands of unemployed nuclear physicists, mechanical engineers, and biotech scientists who are just clamoring for jobs in this economy, right? Put them to work in Washington!

Except, it’s not that simple. Have you ever tried to work on a project, even in school, in a group of more than two or three close friends? What about with people you’ve never worked with in your life? Ones that don’t come from the same city, state, or even culture that you’ve been accustomed to? Do you like every single person you’ve collaborated with? Probably not. But you’re a private citizen and aren’t beholden to anyone else but yourself and your grade in those situations — you have to make tough decisions and can pout and moan about your terrible group members all you want.

Politicians can’t-don’t-shouldn’t-aren’t able to do it as freely as you are. They’ve got to keep their “coworkers” happy because you need support from everyone around you to get legislation passed that you want passed. If you are an aspiring engineer or scientist at this very moment, or perhaps have already graduated and are well on your way to securing status as said scientists (or know one), would you feel comfortable having that very scientist decide on the Social Security budget for next year? How about the environmental impact study that says switching to 30% organic farms will lose 50% of the agricultural revenue for the next 10 years, what are your opinions on that? Do your constituents have an opinion? Don’t forget, you’re in a state bordering Mexico, so you’ve got to take into account the immigration issues as well as the various tax challenges that arise with all of those — don’t want to make budget cuts in a recession! (Or maybe you do, Mr. Hayek.)

It’s a tough job. I don’t believe that many of the comments from Average Jane & Joe America understand the vast complexity that comes with being a politician. They are elected representatives. There is a very specific reason that we do not have direct democracy in this country — mostly because I would have no idea which way to vote on the next financial market derivatives fancy-algorithm-and-equation law that’s coming up in the SEC, and neither would you. There are a small minority of folks who do understand those numbers and the data, and they’re hopefully writing and talking about it at this very moment. Hopefully they’re either in Washington as a politician, staffer, advisor, or an employee of a lobbyist who’s trying to get some law passed.

Yes, I know that I’m making a normative case here that “hopes for the best” in a time when we’ve basically only seen the worst. I’m sure Google has lobbied for terrible things that will never see the light of day, but I’m sure at one point General Electric or Pfizer lobbied for something that has brought happiness and utility to your life.

I’m not so sure I like this whole politics-being-really-complex thing anymore. Can I hire someone to do the thinking for me?

Possibilities

Finally my got vlog up for the new year. Hopefully I’ll be able to do one blog and vlog each week — but most importantly I’ll need feedback from y’all! Let me know what you think about anything and everything, and I’ll just note I’m trying to get a decent camera so you don’t have to hear my fans or deal with the terribly image quality.

Return of Laser Camp, Death of House

I’m not even going to comment on the fact that I’m back at blogging because it’s useless — promises don’t mean anything because I’m going to keep up with it whether I enjoy it or not. Dedication or something like that.

Anyways, this weekend (Saturday the 14th, to be specific) Laser Camp returns to the Baton Rouge airwaves (and online) with myself and my co-host, Dr. Dirt, to prepare the Greater Baton Rouge area for the Spring ’12 semester. You should listen in, even if it’s just for 10 minutes, because we really do enjoy playing music for people from all walks of life…and we definitely get that trying to play electronica in southern Louisiana at 9pm on a Saturday evening during Football season. But we won’t talk about college games anymore because that was just depressing.

It’s only appropriate that as I post about my only House-music outlet in the South returning to the Airwaves that the infamous Paris Hilton decides to announce that she’s throwing her hat into the ring — she plans on releasing a House album sometime this year that will be “perfect party music.”

According to this post via Mixmag, in an interview with FHM, the “star” was quoted as attended over 100 raves in the past year and hanging out world-class DJs. She was hanging out with Afrojack on New Years, but I’m sure she’s got other friends, right? Like that one time she told Steve Angelo (yes, of Swedish House Mafia) that he was a terrible DJ and that Bob Sinclair was a “far better DJ” after getting into a fight with him at party he was DJing at. I’m not going to claim that Steven Angelo is a great DJ but he doesn’t deserve to get snubbed by the likes of Paris.

That’s the way that karma works, I suppose — something negative has to happen to balance out the positive, right?

LASER CAMP PEW PEW

So, if you haven’t heard through the various channels I’ve been promoting (spamming), I was lucky enough to get a show on LSU’s radio station KLSU. I’m going to be broadcasting the Baton Rouge airwaves every Saturday evening from 9 to 11pm CST on my electronic show Laser Camp. There definitely is an internet stream available here and I’m going to look into the possibility of getting a video stream up as well…I think it’d be a neat little addition for those of you who don’t get to see me that often!

Awesomely enough, I had my first show last night and I think it went extremely well. First off, thank YOU so much for listening in. I had so many people calling in to the studio, requesting music, thanking me for playing electronic music, appreciating the music that I had played etc that it just made my night that much better. I never though that playing music for other people would be so satisfying, but knowing that there was confidence in my choices and that it was approved by the community was that much better. I know I had friends from all over listening in on the internet stream, plenty of people in Los Angeles and even a fellow DJ-on-a-sweet-internship in New York tuned in (WHILE PLAYING SC2)! Totally rad.

Here is a link to the playlist of my first show; it includes everything I played, including the songs requested by the listeners. I also included a link to buy every song I could find through a legitimate source: Beatport, Amazon, iTunes, etc as we’re playing these songs to help y’all find new music.

Of course, as with the first run of anything, there were a few hitches. There were two songs I played that would have had me fired in an instant — named, SebastiAn’s remix of “Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine and AC Slaters remix of “Cooler Couleur” by Crookers and Yelle. And they were right after each other. I started playing both of them, realized there was an expletive coming up, faded down the music and went to the next song. My apologies if you were annoyed/startled/disappointed, but I was not down for getting fired on my first night in the studio.

Secondly, there were couple of times where I had a few seconds of dead air. Nothing major, and it’s not like that doesn’t happen to even experienced DJs, but trying to keep the sound going constantly is a pretty important milestone.

Finally, I need to figure out how to mute the Mac error “ping” sound when you try to do something but the OS won’t allow you. Was definitely playing a song, trying to remove a track from my playlist in iTunes and had it make a tiny ping (and it occurred a few other times too). Maybe no one else noticed, but it’s so easy for me to notice something in the songs that shouldn’t be there.

All in all it was an exhilarating experience and I cannot wait for next weeks show. I definitely will be doing more requests next time as I realized it’s not super important to keep the flow — people want to hear what they want to hear and I’ll try to fit in every single song I possible can.

If you ever find yourself on a Saturday night and you’re in the mood to listen to some awesome music, or perhaps you’re at a party and the sound system is primed for electro goodness, tune in to my show and share the bass!
(or feel free to laugh at all of the mistakes that I make, how terrible my voice sounds, the cheesy music I play etc. I welcome all criticisms and critiques!)

Samplotron

My brother Josh has been doing a lot of cool things lately. He’s got a sweet new job somewhere in San Francisco and one of the perks is that there are also a ton of other cool and interesting folk in San Francisco.

Apparently, he has decided to dabble into art. Or science. Or interactive media. Maybe it’s a combination of all of these things? Anyways, I’m not one to judge purely on genre. Never!

Samplotron at JXN FIGMENT

So they built this huge mobius strip out of steel. Things thing was so awesomely sturdy because it was designed to be used as a jungle gym. You feel like climbing on it? GO FOR IT! Want to hang from the top? Be my guest. They had a bunch of CAT5/6 cable decorating the tubing and it seemed like they had quite a bit left over so they decided to make a few swings and nets to relax on.

Then came the fun electronics and programming bit. They have 64 pucks in total, 2-6 on each column, that are both LED lights and triggers ala a monome which are hooked up to a computer running Ableton. Then you just get to have a wicked amount of fun pushing buttons, climbing and relaxing around a huge steel mobius strip with great music and interesting visuals.

Everything else at FIGMENT JXN was pretty awesome. There was a camera obscura, awesome network of cardboard tunnels, huge air vinyl-like structures, and plenty more that we didn’t get to see. If you get the chance to see a FIGMENT in your city you should definitely go!

Flooding in Vicksburg

Had a few days off from work at Urban Outfitters. Brother is in Jackson, MS to do an art project and I figured I should head up to Vicksburg to meet them and go see some awesome art!

Turns out I had conveniently forgotten that all along the Mississippi river there is massive flooding. My parents are fine and aren’t in any danger whatsoever. Sadly that’s not true for everyone out here. They’re opening up spillways and such to make sure high density areas don’t get flooded so there are plenty of people displaced and out of their homes for the time being. If you have something (anything) to spare, please consider donating to the Red Cross. You’ll get to choose where your money goes, whether it’s directly to the Mississippi Red Cross, “Where It’s Needed Most” or even to the Japanese Red Cross, anything you can donate will help.

I was able to take a few pictures and videos and they always seem to do these types of things more justice than any words, so I’ll let them do the talking for me this time around.

Discount Furniture Warehouse being reached by floods.

Yazoo/Mississippi railroad station being flooded.

Area surrounding the railroad station.

Area surrounding the railroad station.

Poor lonely sign.

Quick Snippets

There’s been quite a bit of interesting and awesome stuff on the internet recently, today in particular. Seems as if y’all enjoy fewer words and more videos/pictures so I’ll try and make this as painless as possible.

Here’s what I’ve liked so far:

Moda Parties — great music from incredibly talented artists and musicians. Quick little video displaying the events put on by Moda in Europe. Not only does it showcase what a decent party is like; but my GOODNESS does the crowd have excellent crowd etiquette or what? No pushing/crowding the front, actual dancing from the majority…it just seems like everyone is there to actually enjoy themselves!
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Image from DallasNews.com

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/?bcid=940041320001
In N’ Out opens in Dallas, TX — who’s down to go on a 7 hour road trip to get the most enjoyable burger you will have in your entire life? And yes, that is a woman crying towards the end. It brings tears of joy to the hearts of all of us, I know.
–

Beardyman exposes Indie music and Dubstep — does a very good job of showing how simplistic this two genres can be at times. Not to say that all songs are like this, but it’s still a damn good approximation of a (admittedly, naive) genre.

Trizzy at the House of Blues

Two Fridays ago, on April 22nd, I had the pleasure of seeing A-Trak at the House of Blues.

If you’ve never heard of A-Trak, I sincerely suggest you go study some of his material. He is single handedly responsible for the rise/return/resurgence of House music for mainstream aural pleasure. And if you’re completely oblivious to my musical tastes and preferences, House is without a doubt my favorite. (There were be a completely separate write-up on electronic music in general, so don’t worry if you’re unaware of what distinguishes House music from the rest.)

Back to the point. A-Trak. Live performance. Mind blown. Etcetera.

The day of the performance I was able to get my shift covered at work (thanks again, Chad and Kristin!) and bought my ticket. $18 for three different artists? Yes please. Oh, wait a second; LiveNation wants to charge me $1.50 as a facility? Uhm, okay…I guess if I have to. What’s that? You’re charging me $7.85 as a convenience fee? Hold on a second. First of all, there is no convenience in being the only option. Secondly, there is nothing convenient about your service — it’s not difficult, but it’s not like it’s Amazon level of support or anything (and THEY don’t charge a fee). Okay, at least all that’d one.

No? You’re not finished with bullshit charges? $3.40 for an ORDER PROCESSING FEE? How is that not part of the convenience fee!? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, LIVENATION? WOULD YOU LIKE MY KIDNEYS AS WELL? HERE…TAKE A MY LIVER. I DON’T NEED IT; CLEARLY YOU’RE GOING TO NEED IT MORE THAN I.

Fuck. I really wanted to see A-Trak though. So an $18 ticket became a $31.25 ticket, but it was completely worth it.

Gaslamp Killer came out and as usual the crowd wasn’t there for him, but he did his thing anyways. He mentioned he was from San Diego, CA and kept dropping some California producer’s beats. Excellent turntablism from him and there was a great amount of jazz improv as well. He played a decent hour set or so, even with an iPad he cracked (spider web style) from his last show. Kudos for that.

Kid Sister was the next performer and she was great as well. Had an excellent vibe the entire time and she even brought a few girls on stage from the crowd to help dance. I always love it when they get the crowd involved, intimacy can exist even in a bigger venue like the House of Blues.  Oh yeah, she came out riding a cooler mounted on some three-wheeled scooter. It was so ridiculous that I just couldn’t help but laugh.

She performed, as far as I know, most of her bigger songs. Pro Nails, Switchboard, and then she also started throwing down some of the songs from her mix tape (which I love, by the way. I think it’s still available to download for free.) Nothing to unsuspecting or out of the ordinary, but that’s not to say it wasn’t a good performance. She only played for about 30 minutes before letting the stage go empty again.

I forgot to mention one thing – in the back of the stage was this giant…something. Covered in a tarp for the first two acts, no one in the audience could really tell what was behind it. As neither GLK nor Kid Sister revealed what it was, I figured out (clever girl) that it was for A-Trak…but what could it have possibly been?

Curtains open up and it seems like A-Trak has constructed quite the nice stage for himself. We were up pretty close and didn’t get a good picture of the entire thing but from what I could tell, if you were far back enough, was it created an “A” with lights running up and down all of the edges. Definitely inspired by the Daft Punk pyramid, but with an unquestionable Trizzy flair to it.

So he started spinning records and I’m just in awe. It’s really rare to find a DJ who uses vinyl these days, much less actually scratches them to create an instrument out of them, and A-Trak did this perfectly.  He was playing a little but of everything; house, hip hop/rap, big noise makers, chill tunes…like an actual DJ should. I’ve been getting tired of (well, exhausted…really) of the digital DJs who drop nothing but bangers. The crowd has energy but you don’t keep it at 11 for the entire night. There needs to be some ebb and flow to your set, so you keep people interested.  A-Trak did this so well without boring anyone that it made me remember what it was like to be at the desert parties of old.

I assume most of the songs were originals, but he definitely did play some of his big name tracks like Barbra Streisand etc. However, there were two different things that I was absolutely floored by. First off, since when did A-Trak play tech house? Not that it’s a bad thing by any standard, but that simply came out of nowhere. I was second guessing myself for the first song, but there were easily 3-4 tunes he dropped that night that would be classified as tech house and I sincerely hope he keeps it up.

The second thing that made my jaw hit the floor (in sync with my feet) was his “Big Bad Wolf” track. Really simple and downright funky was this new track that all of the blogs have been raging about ever since he first dropped it. I can’t wait for the official release because I need to hear it without the screams of the crowd. Not only that, but he very obviously had some giant button that is just a wolf howl + light controller and I am TOTALLY FUCKING JEALOUS. He knows how to play that thing like a goddamn fiddle.

Ended it without letting us stop moving once and we all loved it.

I will say that I think I liked him better at Electric Daisy Carnival ’09 when he performed with Travis Barker, but you cannot really compare the two. Different settings, different people, different ideas.

Same badass four on the floor, though.

I Hope No One is Listening

…because there is about to be an unusual amount of ridiculous and inane banter.

Why would you possible write about that, Zach?