Cultural Blind Spots

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:31 am

We've joked that Quinlan's friends will be Madeline, Madeleine, Maddie and Maddy. And probably a Quinn.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:33 am

Half of the kids in our school district have Indian names. Fucking followers.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:11 pm

Ryan wrote:Half of the kids in our school district have Indian names. Fucking followers.

Hey, Raj! Hey, Squanto! Want some ice cream?

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:15 pm

mister d wrote:It is a pretty unfortunate name. Like picking a kid's name a couple years before it becomes wildly popular than everyone lumps you in with the followers.

DaveInSeattle · Post by **DaveInSeattle** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:16 pm

Ok, I got another one. I like to think of myself as being up-to-date on new music, including some hip-hop...well, as much as a 50 year old white dude in Seattle can be...

But what the hell is the difference between a Hip-Hop album and a "mix tape"?

howard · Post by **howard** » Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:26 pm

Remember when you were a kid, you would make a cassette tape of a bunch of songs from different bands for a specific purpose? For a party, or long car road trip, or to set a romantic mood, or to express your feelings for a young lady? That is a mix tape, and the origin of the term

Now there is no tape, but a digital playlist of songs from different bands/groups, either on a device or burned onto a disc (kids do occasionally burn music onto discs, right?) Or burned onto a memory stick/thumb drive.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 6:06 am

I don't understand tattoos.

Sure, people get one or two, it's - I guess - kind of interesting. Maybe there's some meaning for the marks.

But the heavy tattooing just boggles my mind.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:14 am

Weird. Just last night I was asking a tattoo friend if he'd ever heard of someone getting a full scale tattoo of someone else on their back. He hasn't.

DaveInSeattle · Post by **DaveInSeattle** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 10:30 am

howard wrote:Remember when you were a kid, you would make a cassette tape of a bunch of songs from different bands for a specific purpose? For a party, or long car road trip, or to set a romantic mood, or to express your feelings for a young lady? That is a mix tape, and the origin of the term

Now there is no tape, but a digital playlist of songs from different bands/groups, either on a device or burned onto a disc (kids do occasionally burn music onto discs, right?) Or burned onto a memory stick/thumb drive.

No....I know all that. What I'm asking is this: Drake put out some new music a couple of weeks ago, and I've heard it called a "mix tape"....where as Kendrick Lamar put out new music, and its called an Album, not a "mix tape".

What's the difference? Are the terms interchangeable?

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:07 am

DaveInSeattle wrote:
howard wrote:Remember when you were a kid, you would make a cassette tape of a bunch of songs from different bands for a specific purpose? For a party, or long car road trip, or to set a romantic mood, or to express your feelings for a young lady? That is a mix tape, and the origin of the term

Now there is no tape, but a digital playlist of songs from different bands/groups, either on a device or burned onto a disc (kids do occasionally burn music onto discs, right?) Or burned onto a memory stick/thumb drive.
No....I know all that. What I'm asking is this: Drake put out some new music a couple of weeks ago, and I've heard it called a "mix tape"....where as Kendrick Lamar put out new music, and its called an Album, not a "mix tape".

What's the difference? Are the terms interchangeable?

The Kendrick Lamar one is good, while the Drake one is not?

Seriously, the Kendrick Lamar one is very good.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:26 am

Mixtapes are what you put out without label intervention and keeps your name fresh in the streetz. It's also a means to hype an upcoming album as well. Wiki says "It is now a word to generally describe full length albums released for free, sometimes all original music, other times composed of freestyles and remixes of popular tracks."

There will usually be full records that will hit the radio on the mixtape that could also appear on the album later. That's how Drake was "discovered." His mixtape So Far Gone got him serious radio play with the track Best I Ever Had. and put him out into the mainstream. Hell, in the track Forever he has the lyric dropped a mixtape/that shit sounded like an album.

Basically, everything Gunpowder Jones drops is a mixtape. If he were signed to Def Jam Records and released an LP through them, it would be an album.

Hopefully that makes sense of things.

howard · Post by **howard** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:45 am

I had no idea. cuz i'm old.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:39 am

My Young-to-Old Translater app outputs this:

The modern mixtape is roughly equivalent to that white-cover/white-label bootleg of a live Stones concert that you bought in that little record store down by the parking garage that had the rolling papers and pipes under the counter, back in 1972. Except the sound isn't crap, and it's bootlegged by Mick so he gets the bread, dig?

Post by **Shirley** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:27 am

Yeah, from what I understand, mixtapes are what young, up-and-coming hip hop artists make and distribute to try to gain recognition. The goal is for a DJ or producer to listen and like it enough to either play it on local radio or get you a recording contract.

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 11:31 am

I don't understand today's youth who insist on fucking up their earlobes with those disc things. It's fucked up.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:18 pm

I know, right?

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:30 pm

I stand by it.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:14 pm

Much like a bad tattoo, they're likely to regret that look in twenty years.

The things we oldtimers did to ourselves were at least usually temporary.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:50 pm

I know, right?

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 6:51 pm

tennbengal wrote:I don't understand today's youth who insist on fucking up their earlobes with those disc things. It's fucked up.

My favourite student - a kid with brains and drive - has those expanders in his ear lobes.

He may be a great kid and a good student, but whenever I look at him the words "are you fucking nuts?" echo through my mind.

Do those holes ever close?

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:06 pm

It's a growing niche market for cosmetic surgery is my guess.

I imagine they say something to your crowd, about your identity. That has never gone out of style. The stronger, the better. This is way stronger than clothes and hair. Wait until we see what is coming next at this level. You know it will happen. It will probably shock and offend some of the ear lobe people. At least the new crowd will hope so.

devilfluff · Post by **devilfluff** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:50 pm

DC47 wrote:It's a growing niche market for cosmetic surgery is my guess.

I imagine they say something to your crowd, about your identity. That has never gone out of style. The stronger, the better. This is way stronger than clothes and hair. Wait until we see what is coming next at this level. You know it will happen. It will probably shock and offend some of the ear lobe people. At least the new crowd will hope so.

What could they do? Stitch prosthetic penises to their foreheads?

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 9:35 am

DC47 wrote:It's a growing niche market for cosmetic surgery is my guess.

I imagine they say something to your crowd, about your identity. That has never gone out of style. The stronger, the better. This is way stronger than clothes and hair. Wait until we see what is coming next at this level. You know it will happen. It will probably shock and offend some of the ear lobe people. At least the new crowd will hope so.

Apparently, they are called "gauges." I learned this via Click Hole.

http://www.clickhole.com/article/10-thi ... stand-1898

L-Jam3 · Post by **L-Jam3** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:06 am

I try not to prejudge, but when I see someone with gauges, I immediately assume they're an asshole. Each disc should have "UNEMPLOYABLE" etched onto it.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:18 am

L-Jam3 wrote:I try not to prejudge, but when I see someone with gauges, I immediately assume they're an asshole. Each disc should have "UNEMPLOYABLE" etched onto it.

I'm with you. There is self-expression and then there is self-mutilation that screams "look at me."

Mind you, here in Toronto there are many places where people with gauges, piercings and tattooed hands can find work.

Many of them are promoting racial tolerance this week as well.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:08 am

devilfluff wrote:
DC47 wrote:It's a growing niche market for cosmetic surgery is my guess.

I imagine they say something to your crowd, about your identity. That has never gone out of style. The stronger, the better. This is way stronger than clothes and hair. Wait until we see what is coming next at this level. You know it will happen. It will probably shock and offend some of the ear lobe people. At least the new crowd will hope so.
What could they do? Stitch prosthetic penises to their foreheads?

By definition, we can have no idea what is next.

As hard as it is to grasp now, it was unpredictable and equally shocking to people with mainstream values when young men in the early 60s started wearing their hair so that they looked like girls, and when even nice boys at Ivy League schools (and on weekends, their faculty!) started wearing pants that signaled that they were lower-class hoodlums.

There is always a boundary. There is always the need to go beyond it, as a tribe.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:12 am

1) That's a bastardization of the term mix-tape, I don't like it, and I want all of you kids off my damn lawn! (I grew up putting my mom's radio speakers up next to my cassette recorder, taping entire segments from The Electrifying Mojo in the 80s. I'd then reel-to-reel edit them down, keeping the Kraftwerk and Sugar Hill Gang cuts.)

2) I will never understand tattoos and piercings. I can see a small one on your ankle or wrist or whatever, but sleeves and stuff across your back or chest? No.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:18 am

Pruitt wrote:
L-Jam3 wrote:I try not to prejudge, but when I see someone with gauges, I immediately assume they're an asshole. Each disc should have "UNEMPLOYABLE" etched onto it.
I'm with you. There is self-expression and then there is self-mutilation that screams "look at me."

You mean like much of women's high-end fashion and even mainstream 'style'? Cosmetic surgery, fake boobs, hair coloring, food disorders, extreme tanning. Even high heels are known to cause significant damage to many women.

Mind you, here in Toronto there are many places where people with gauges, piercings and tattooed hands can find work.

Of course. And many would find employment at a place that was less tolerant to be abhorent even if they personally chose to look like Tim Tebow. So they are not really limiting themselves by how they choose to look.

Further, the limitations may be less than is obvious, and diminishing. My guess is that long ago there were people with all of those visual attributes who were found employable by hedge funds at very nice wages.

Everything that can be said about this crowd was once the case with hippies.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:19 am

Nonlinear FC wrote:2) I will never understand tattoos and piercings. I can see a small one on your ankle or wrist or whatever, but sleeves and stuff across your back or chest? No.

This is of course a major reason why these things have power and work for a significant part of our society.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:02 pm

mister d wrote:Weird. Just last night I was asking a tattoo friend if he'd ever heard of someone getting a full scale tattoo of someone else on their back. He hasn't.

I'm thinking about getting a full scale tattoo of my wife's back on my back.

DC47 wrote: By definition, we can have no idea what is next.

Maybe you don't but I set the trends.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:09 pm

I was judging you guys for judging then I thought about whether I'd be cool with Q or D going full sleeve or gauges.

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:11 pm

mister d wrote:I was judging you guys for judging then I thought about whether I'd be cool with Q or D going full sleeve or gauges.

You would not be.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:14 pm

I think timing would matter a lot. If they were in business school and did it, I'd die. If they were in culinary school, whatev.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 1:58 pm

mister d wrote:Weird. Just last night I was asking a tattoo friend if he'd ever heard of someone getting a full scale tattoo of someone else on their back. He hasn't.

Yo this is creeeeeeepy ... http://www.clickhole.com/article/middle ... e-siz-2051" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:43 pm

I didn't see it mentioned, but Steve O has a tattoo of himself on his back:

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:50 pm

Wow, even autographed it.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:27 pm

Johnnie wrote:I didn't see it mentioned, but Steve O has a tattoo of himself on his back:

I vaguely remember him saying in an interview that he did that because he lost a bet.

I need to check out Clickhole once in a while. Funny stuff there.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 4:25 pm

But that's just his face. A face is easy.

Johnny Carwash · Post by **Johnny Carwash** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:26 am

Thought I'd resurrect this thread after it occurred to me that while I don't have anything against him, I have never read, watched, or listened to anything by Garrison Keillor.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:29 am

I read Lake Woebegone Days when I was a young teen up at a rented cottage.

Kind of liked it, but never felt the need to pursue his oeuvre any further after hearing part of one of his radio shows.