ALL MIXED UP

still licensed to ill

Hipster Detritus beat me to it but the new Green Lantern/Beastie Boys mixtape, New York State of Mind is good. I mean, really, really good. Like great. I wouldn't have thought the Beasties would be the type to aim for some street cred with a mix-CD but at this point, I don't care what their purpose was: I'm just glad they did it.

I was not a big fan of To the 5 Boroughs but now I realize: it wasn't because the lyrics were wack (this is the B-Boys after all, they're not De La Soul), it was because the beats sucked. Give Green Lantern carte blanche access to the BB acapellas and he lights a fire underneath both new and old material. Sounds I thought were unsalvagable, like "Triple Double," suddenly sound granite solid. The blends go both ways: he's also using classic BB's beats to put over other MCs like Biggie and the Clipse. Sick.

More than that, this is an actual mix, not that weak ass bullshit that every NY "DJ" is churning out into Canal St. bootleggers' shops - you know what I'm talking about: a bunch of "exclusives" with a loud-mouthed host yelling over all the good parts and nary a single actual "mix" between songs.

Green Lantern though? He actually spent some time to tighten up his mix and make this a seamless play from intro to end. I just wish every other DJ out there would take some notes.

This comes a few weeks late but damn - check this out.

On Redherring.com, an interview with Joyce Park who got fired from Friendster for blogging. Just to show you: corporate decision-makers can be royally stupid sometimes. Not only did firing Park make Friendster seem like a bunch of knee-jerks idiots (everything she said about Friendster on her blog was already publically available), not only did it lead to a wave of bad press for the company, but it also meant putting your redesign leader out on the street with no job and a grudge. If I was at one of Friendster's rising competitors, I'd be putting out a team of headhunters to start speed-dialing Park.

Just to make some sense of this, keep in mind that Friendster's founder, Jon Abrams, penned this bizarre anti-blog screed back in 2002. It's no big deal that he doesn't like weblogs - that's cool - but his ranting is really asinine, not to mention completely hypocritical. Abrams breaks down a list of "why people do it" and among his pseudo-psychological explanations for blogging, he includes:

• The Reverse Voyuer
  
• The Exhibitionist
  
• The Self Important Moron
  
• The Tragically Geek
  
• The Ego Stroker

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these all archetypes of Friendster users? The irony abounds.

Real Genius is one of the best, passed-over comedies of the 1980s - starring Val Kilmer in one of his early, great comedic roles (pretend you knew about Top Secret too) plus William Atherton, playing one in his long line of cinematic assholes (Die Hard, Ghostbusters, etc.) from the '80s. This all said, didn't Gabriel Jarret, who plays the other lead character Mitch, look more like a girl than guy? Just saying...it's hard to believe him as romantic lead when co-star Michelle Meyrink looks more masculine than you do.

The crazy thing is that Real Genius is largely based on the exploits of students at Cal Tech and MIT and having taken classes at Cal Tech in the late '80s (when Real Genius is set), I can pretty much attest to the fact that they weren't too far off the mark in their characterizations. I remember one time, walking into a dorm building on campus, and there were train tracks laid out everywhere on the floors.

Who knew it would happen? The music industry is starting to go after homophobes.
(credit: Coolfer)

This story is too good to be true: "Pup shoots man, saves litter mates". Yeah, that's right: dog shoots man.

Eh yo!
(credit: Hip Hop Logic)