I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Just Listen to the Rhythm of My Butt

I have said, probably on this forum at some point in the past, that I have some level of respect for Eminem. In this context I was probably talking about two things, one, his ability as a satirist, embodied in things like the Dido sample and all the videos that show up on MTV, or the lines about Columbine in "I Am," two, his ability to make politics fairly powerful in a musical context. I have all the same beefs everyone else does about his obvious problems in relation to gender and sexual minorities. The violence is sometimes bothersome to me, but I think sometime used effectively and overall just not relevant, though that is my own particularly desensitized self. Anyway, I saw this link in a number of places and I was bored during one of today's debates, so, I watched it online. I would post a link, but I think you can find it if you want it. It was on the Guerilla News Network, fucking google it.

Anyway, its fucking incredible. I am not a music fan, I don't listen to protest music, but I can say without question that it is the most effective politically active music video I have ever seen. Its fucking brilliant. The song is okay, its not the greatest tune in the world, but its pretty solid, more importantly, whoever wrote/designed/directed the video made almost all the right choices. The themes are not tremendously original, but are certainly correct. More importantly, there are a couple scenes with West Wing quality metaphoric images and some brilliantly pounding moments where the crescendo-ing nature of the music corresponds with perfectly done animations. I won't pretend that this is the best video ever made, nor that every moment of it is rare-form of the pure brilliance, but its fucking good. I don't know if it helps or hurts our chances in the election, though the possibility that it will motivate a couple kids to vote doesn't hurt and I can't really imagine that there is anyone who will, as a result of this thing, go vote for Bush though they hadn't planned to before. Safe to say, its good, and if you haven't watched it already, it gets my recommendation.

I wrote this over the weekend, during a debate round actually. As usual I forgot to post it. I am going to do so now, on election night, and join up with the pundits to blog the election. So tune in for my round the clock coverage. Except for when our pizza and wings come, I will then take a break.

At the moment we have just seen the second set of closings, nothing surprising quite yet, but Bush has 39. Thats largely a coincedence of the fact that 4 Bush states close early, but its scary nonetheless. Ohio closed at 7:30, we'll start hearing things soon I am sure. My coverage is based primarily on NBC and CNN, though there may be some MSNBC mixed in there. If you live somewhere where the polls are still open and you haven't voted, go fucking do it. I know it gets old to hear it so often, but the fact of the matter is that insofar as voter numbers stay down elections stay shitty, they continue to be dominated by pandering and smearing. Although turnout is already promising, I think even 75% of elligible voters doesn't prove the absolutel necessity of intelligent debate. Back soon.

Peace,

MB-K