R.I.P. James Brown/Happy Birthday Jesus

Happy Holidays to all from your favorite aquatic mammals. James Brown, one of the most influential and imitated artists of all time, passed away today. We have witnessed the passing of a true icon. Today's date is better known as the anniversary of the naissance of another man, a man whose actions shaped, in great part, the world we live in today. On future 12/25s, we should be sure to celebrate JB as we cut the turkey in memory of JC.

In these violent and strepitous times, I hope 12/25 can provide us all with a moment of clarity. The world is divided along religious lines in very real and terrifying ways, and it seems that many of us have missed the point of all the Sunday School, Hebrew School, etc. teachings that we heard when we were young. It's mercy, forgiveness, and love that are needed to guide us all to peace, not vindictiveness, paranoia, and hatred. It's much easier to resent others for the differences we see between them and ourselves than it is to promote mutual understanding, but it's hard work that's needed to set things right.

Foodmantooth ain't no religious blog, yo, (no Richard Dawkins) and this message isn't exclusively for Christians or Muslims or Jay-Z stans or whatever. SP and Furman wish you and yours all the best this season; open your minds and hearts to the people in your lives and you may be so lucky as to witness human nature at its finest.

S.P. News/No Yelling

The Foodmantooth of DJ mixtape albums.

I feel like a dumbass for having neglected this site for so long: Undergroundhiphop.com (No backpack cheeseheads) is worth keeping up on, particularly for their Top 40 singles chart. Seriously good tracks on here. Search the site for all the underground joints that you used to love (remember Push Button Objects???).

The anti-Breihan backlash has taken on many forms, not least of which is the criticism of his alleged "fetishization" of the more negative aspects of hip-hop. Sordid Puppy ain't taking sides, but this movement seems to be gaining steam: Dallas Penn weighs weightily in, and the NYTimes have a story about a film on the subject. Fascinating insights on the influence of corporations (and white people in general) on this trend.

Pharrell's live show sounds excruciatingly boring.

The Juggaknots are one of my favorite hip-hop groups of all time; their 2003 Clear Blue Skies (Re:Release) counts among the best albums I've ever heard. This past October, they released Use Your Confusion, their first studio album in three years, and I stupidly failed to pay attention. Their Myspace page has a bunch of audio. You may know lead MC Breezely Brewin as the narrator of Prince Paul's 1999 A Prince Among Thieves (check for Xzibit and Sadat X in classic form at the end of the flick. not to mention everlast...jesus).

Friends, lovers -- I know you've been stressing what to get SP for Christmas. Never fear -- here's a little direction: Mini Madvillain.

New J Dilla album, March 2007. I trust Stones Throw to restrain themselves from 'Pac-like gratuitous posthumous releases. Hopefully I don't lose that trust.

Ho-ho-hoing and things of this nature: watch Adult Swim. Tonight. DVR it for Sordid Puppy.

a.k.a. Iced Out Ornithopters

Sordid Puppy's late, venerable great-grand-uncle, Michael Collins.

Your favoritest pen pal Sordid Puppy will be reporting to you from Ireland for the next few weeks, my variously-legged friends. The vortex of hype surrounding Nas's Hip-Hop Is Dead and Styles P's Time Is Money dropping in the same 24-hour time frame scared me poopless, and I had to flee the country. The hive over at Nahright seem disappointed by Pinero's latest long-player (remember A Gangster and a Gentlemen?? that was no classic, but it got much play in SP's discatee), which I think tops off the most disappointing, over-hyped series of potentially knock-down-drag-out releases that I can remember.

I haven't heard much of Hip-Hop Is Dead, and I don't like the title cut, but "Hustlers" is fucking badass and I'll probably buy the album because I'm a sucker for Mr. Jones. I stumbled into a discussion of the worst Nas records ever the other day, and several of those involved agreed that Street's Disciple tops the list (or brings up the rear, or however that works (NO GAY SHEEP)), but I'm a huge fan of this song and if the album it's on is worse than HHID, then I figure HHID is worth buying. Plus that The Game verse on "Hustlers" where he raps about stealing Illmatic and The Chronic is fucking sweet. I guess this means that Nas beat everyone else, from Styles to Hov to Snoop to The Clipse to whoever, because he made a decent album and it'll probably go platinum eventually.

I hereby take a well-deserved hiatus from reporting about mainstream U.S. hip-hop. For the next three weeks, Sordid Puppy's sordid posts will consist exclusively of my thoughts on U.K. grime (talking a whole lot about a bunch of songs that are all called "Da Endz"), breakfast sausages whose composition is something other than straightforward (NO GAY GORILLAS), and of course the inimitable Irish woman. Or maybe I'll just write about how GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU. AND DELICIOUS. Slainte.

Slothra owns a crossbow

Right now, I am sitting here listening to a playlist of the 29 songs that I just ganked from the Pitchfork Top 200 Songs of 2006…and polishing my compound crossbow with wigster fat and Hypnotiq. I ended up with 29 songs because I had some of the songs already and all the major labels obviously didn’t let Fork just lay their IP out on the internet meat market like that. These songs were streaming or had youtube links or whatever. For some reason internet sluts think I will stream music and be satisfied with it. They forget that I am an anarcho-syndicalist gangster who has a woman for each day of the advent calendar.

This playlist is not surprising in any way. There are a lot of remixes and techno, which is for gays being gay or Europeens (not me, I kill people with my crossbow if they look at one of my advent-calendar-women, and then I listen to NY mixtape rappers with Patrick Bateman). The thing you will notice is that these hegemonic snobbaskets do not like Nas or Jay-Z, the two people who invented music and ETHERED EACH OTHER SO HARD AND WITHOUT HOMO THAT THEY BECAME BETTER THAN EVERYTHING AND WE CAN WRITE SO MANY JOKES ABOUT HOW EITHER ONE OF THEM COULD FART AND MAKE BETTER MUSIC THAN LITTLE WAYNE. This might be because Nas’ album hasn’t come out yet, but it’s obvious that that album’s wrapping is better than any songs by that harp chick who sounds like if the Devil were a fetus doing karaoke. These people obviously don’t cop beef patties on Nostrand Ave. in BK. They get their bagels with subservient salmon cream cheese on Bergen St. in Park Slope, where they push around their babies, who are in very wigster strollers that have Clipse mixtapes playing in their BOSE systems. These babies are learning to fetishize hip hop and cocaine, rather than actually being crack babies with no spinal chords, which has a status that is VERY hood. These babies are being taught to become Weezy/Clipse stans who will later be ETHERED SO HARD NO MUMU (wordplay/joke that makes sure everyone knows I have a woman for every day of the advent calender) on their blackberrys as they try to convince everyone on the internets that Jay-Z and Nas have baby-making devices that are shorter than Tom Breihan.

Ghostface, TI, Lil Wayne, and Grizzly Bear are on that list. Ghostface is the worst rapper in the world but hipsters love him because he makes them write term papers about him. TI is obviously homo because he’s a thespian too (urbandictionary.com told me that means he’s not no Mario Cuomo [my Women conceive of various creative not-gay manners of servicing me every single day]). I S my H at the wigsters and then I shoot them 50 times with arrows as I L my A off because Sean Bell has very much to do with people in Park Slope who like the Clipse too much and don’t know what twinky trains are.

Recently my partner Sordid Puppy and I have been destroying the hip-hop blogosphere and commenting so well on other very good blogs, such as Nah Right Dot Com and Dallas Penn Dot Com. Those are two blogs that are written by people from NY who understand what classic hip-hop is and the need for many etherings of Wigsters who try to peek out from their indie-rock gayfests, where people try to recreate mafia greetings and end up kissing their fake fathers on the mouth. SP doesn’t realize like I do that NYC is the only place where people who listen to hip hop can actually read and not slurr words because their mother drank when they were buns in ovens. SP has incited the wrath of Dallas Penn himself and Eskay of Nah right, who have ethered him so resolutely on the FMT comments section, causing him to lapse into wigster catatonia, symptoms of which include trying to eat his 39 copies of Most Known Unknown and the reading of novels. I, Slothra realize that SP has forgotton that NY hip hop invented the study of Physics and gardening. He has somehow gone astray and embraced the poop humor of Little Wayne, the luridly colored hoodies of Clipse and the blogstache of El-P. Hopefully my crossbow threats and gaggle of womenfriends shall convince him that Kingdom Come makes good pancakes and that Hip Hop is Dead is better at golf than Kim Jong IL.

There is a new blog, called Idolator, which is pink and likes other blogs. Idolator has a lotta $$ from a website called Gawker, so Idolator can post all day, make hilarious jokes about other bloggers and then buy that extra end table with a fish tank inside of it. Slothra was up in their clamshell with his typing and was mistaken for one of their employees by speciesist bloggers that made a site with cool artwork called Ohword.com. This website called Slothra a porpoise, which is a fast swimming sea beast that makes Slothra envious, for he doesn’t so much swim as float with the current and wiggle his stumpy fins futilely. Although the people at ohword.com make funny comics about the Wu-Tang Clan, they obviously hate the sea, and are very bad at making blog posts, which makes Slothra hate them.

All this blogginess and strummy pitchfork songs have made me tired, and Slothra just wants to listen to Sonic Youth or Mission of Burma, who made two of the best rap albums of the year.

FMT: Grow Up Before We Blow Up

FMT in Bertolucci's 1900. Furman played by De Niro, Depardieu as Sordid Puppy

Bernardo Bertolucci just dropped a couple sick throwback joints, The Conformist (Le Conformiste) and 1900 (Novecento). Eskay and his not-so-small army of drones over at Nahright.com say Jay-Z's Fade To Black is the best cinematic achievement ever, and that Hova totally ethered all the Bertolucci stans when he invented that fake champagne.

There's been a whole lot of blubber going around since Complez magazine said Lil Wayne said that he was better than Jay-Z and doesn't particularly like the Clipse and Pharrell and Tom Breihan said that he's right and Eskay said he's fucking mental, not to mention gay, and Combat Jack said who the fuck are you, Tom Breihan, to say that Pitbull is better than Nas? Dear Tom, don't even get CJ started on those fatuous claims regarding Scritti Politti. P.S., try to come to the hood and pop that Scritti Politti drivel, and WE'LL SEE what's really crackin. Love, the ghetto.

Yes, birds and bees, the man whose Status Ain't Hood just got his ghetto pass resoundingly revoked by just about everyone who sat down to a 'pooter over the past week. It sucks for the Clipse, because in the midst of all this they dropped a fucking good album and all the hardcore gangstas who spend 4 hours a day posting on Nahright, XXL, and OhWord message boards don't seem to want to talk about it so I assume they're not buying it either. Breihan wrote a bit about how it's too bad Hell Hath No Fury didn't sell more copies, but his status ain't hood totally ain't hood so what the fuck does he know. Plus he's 6'11", so he, like, looks down on everyone. Fucking asshole.

In between bouts of extreme anxiety over my fundamentally conflicted existence as a white Puppy who listens to rap who's not from NYC and who is sort of tall (FUCK!), I've been doing some thinking. It seems like the problem with Nahright -- and I'll spare him the cliche accusations of being under Def Jam's thumb - is that if it's not from New York or sounds like it's from New York, he's not interested in it, period. I see no other reason why Uncle Murder gets mentioned more often than ANY Southern or West Coast artist that's not The Game or that isn't getting made fun of -- no, better yet, "ethered" (can we put this term to rest? Please?). The same appears to be true of Combat Jack and all the other message board-ers who proffer no better retort to Weezy's claims than "That's fucking ridiculous" or "He's a fucking fag" or, more specifically, "Only pretentious rich white people believe him. People in the hood think Jay-Z is the greatest thing since sliced bread, etc., etc." What you mean to say, CJ, is that people in the hood in BROOKLYN are bigger fans of Jay than Wayne, and that said hood is more discerning or more important or whatever than any other hood in the world.

There's a whole lot of classically educated hip-hop fans, writers, critics, etc. (rappers) who are getting all defensive about the fact that Jay-Z and Nas are past their prime and NYC hip-hop in general is in a sorry state. I'm as big a D-Block fan as the next white boy who doesn't know shit about shit, and I like Cam'ron and Saigon and Wu-Tang and bunch of other cats, but none of these people put out albums with any regularity. I guess Ghostface is the most consistent act coming out of New York right now, but he never makes much of it. Ghostdini never comes up in the incessant message board discussions of who's the best out, maybe because he's from Staten Island and SI doesn't have the name recognition attached to Brooklyn, Harlem, or the Bronx. I just bought More Fish, and sure, I wish Theodore Unit wasn't all over the thing, but it's a good album and the Ghostface verses are better than anything I've heard off Kingdom Come or Hip Hop Is Dead by a long shot.

Shouldn't the discursive community be able to agree that Kingdom Come was a pretty hollow project and that for Nas to flip the same exact sample for "Hip Hop Is Dead" that he did for "Thief's Theme" is borderline insulting to the fans (no, "stans" - no, fuck you)? I'm not mad at Eskay for being NY-centric; I think he's from Younkers, and so whatever, if he thinks New York is where rap begins and ends, fair play to him. Breihan's been doing his thing for awhile now, and I don't agree with everything he says, but he definitely does a good job of tapping into regional acts and giving them some shine. As far as FMT, maybe it's cause we're young that we don't dig Jay-Z's adult contemporary (word to Furman motherfucking P.) or Nas's senility, and it's for the same reason that Weezy's brash defiance appeals to us. In any case, if you think that Papoose is what rap is all about and Lil Wayne sucks, then you and I will never agree, but then that's the beauty of the community.

Half man half -atee

In tuesday's paper, the NYtimes reviewed this sweet new porn site. They usually don't review porn, but I guess this one is worthy of high brow attention. Here's one of the salacious seacows populating this great site.

yuh EE yuh EE

the thing that makes rock music

1. Dinosaur Jr. at Rebel, NYC –

The cabbie on the way there was a bald guy from Yugoslavia who was coming from a band practice. Getting into the cab, I remember thinking “this guy looks like he’s in Anthrax.” Indeed, he was playing with a metal band. Guy would not stop talking. Must’ve been dissolving trucker meth in his Red Bull. One of my retarded drunk co-horts asked him if he could name seven songs by some one hit wonder hair metal band (Survivor maybe) and he was on number four or five when we had to stop him out of fright. He claimed to have about 39 guitars in the trunk, which he offered to show us, but since we were about to be eaten by the hurricane of guitar sounds known as J Mascis, we thought it was best to decline.

The actual show. One of the loudest things I’ve ever heard. I only realized how loud it was when I walked outside and my head started oscillating. J Mascis is a narcoleptic savant guitar hero of the frontest rank. Lou Barlow plays bass like a guitar. Murph plays drums like a bald sweaty man named Murph.

Lou – “Man I’m sweaty as hell.” *looks at J*
J – “…” *looks like he wants to take a nap*
Lou – “For some reason J never seems to sweat”
J – “…” *looks like he doesn’t know he’s alive*

I was drenched by the end. “Ah, swamp stomach,” pointed out one of my co-horts. Goddamn right, Okefenokee shit. Good thing it was 25 degrees outside and we had to walk around for an hour looking for some hoes who kept switching bars. Ended up at a sports bar that had “Big Buck Hunter Pro 2” and more TVs than customers.

Fantasia feat Big Boi - Hood Boy

The best R&B singer/rapper collab I've heard since Yummy Bingham & Jadakiss teamed up for "Come Get It"

Young Jeezy - Bury Me a G

Omar and Wee-Bey of The Wire on the same team? Inconceivable. Good song though.

S.P. News/Get Some Gear

This holiday season, don't get got!!!

Check this Indo G video for a dope, albeit very late-90s-looking, Three 6 Mafia cameo. Song's not half bad, either...

The new Ghostface album that Furman and I are anticipating with guarded optimism drops next Tuesday. Check "Ghost Block Rock" off More Fish at Madlib's Myspace page. Ghost and Madlib the Bad Kid...this song fucking rules.

Another video off Chrome Children. This guy doesn't get blessed by the talented puppies over at Adult Swim, but he wins out on dancing skills alone. James Pants - Do a Couple of Things.

Celebrity blogger Eskay of Nahright.com says Weezy must be on drugs to claim superiority over Hova. Sordid Puppy strongly disagrees, though not with the assertion that Weezy may have been on drugs when he said it. A mutually respectful rivalry born?

Pretty tight new Jeezy. The Runners produced this; they're the same crew that produced "Born n Raised," the video I posted earlier this year.

R.I.P. Sean Bell, eff the swine, but will any lasting changes actually come of this fiasco? In the meantime, Papoose's "Change Gon Come (50 Shots)"

As Indo G reminds us, it's Christmas time, Chanukah time, days off from school/work time, whatever, and SP wants FMT fans to spend their (and their friends and relatives') hard-earned dough on the flyest accoutrements this year. Here are some pages from this dog's sartorial handbook for the holidays.

District Footwear, home of much nice merchandise and one of the best places to cop GrnAppleTree, designers and manufacturers of hands-down the nicest hoodies on the market.

Highsnobiety.com; it is to progressive urban fashion what Nahright.com is to hip-hop, except Highsnobiety doesn't harbor irrational resentment for the best player in the game.

Save your money, because they Sold Out already anyway.

As far as I can tell, these guys lead a fairly pleasant lifestyle: The Hundreds. Peep their shop for fresh Cali gear.

Sneakers: Creative Recreation

Finally, Banned, featuring the best selection of Nike SB for online purchase that I've come across.

Feel like giving a little something back to FMT for keeping you in-the-know year-round? Ask (for our addresses) and you shall receive (permission to buy us presents). We love you.

Weed is Vegetables

No Richard Simmons

Flow touchin the pedal in that F5 yellow
Jussa movin through the city like blood in a vessel
I'm a fuckin professional, so intellectual
It's Mr. Fat Stax, my pockets got high cholesterol
I need vegetables -- is weed vegetables?
I'm past commas -- right now I'm seein decimals.

Uh...the major bison of the boulevard
The barracuda, fightin off the fishin rod
Yea! I get around like a business card
And you can see me everywhere but the prison yard
I'm on that sizzy hard, and that kush tough
Weezy stay high. Just look up.

Lil Wayne beats Ghostface, Eminem to the punch with 4th quarter '06 me-and-my-derivative-crew mixtape, Young Money Vol. 1: Lil Weezyana. It's funny that Jr.'s is free, but I would buy it, and Eminem's tape is getting the legit-album treatment (read: $14 at Best Buy, $350 at Sam Goody, Border's), but I wouldn't even bother wasting the time to download it. Weezy Baby up.

Richard Simmons' Exploding Steamer

This has nothing to do with Hell Hath No Fury.

Feel like a chuck wagon cuz I'm all 12 horses

William Congreve, newest member of the Re-Up Gang

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned."

-William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (1697)

No Shakespeare didn't write that shit. Yes it's misquoted, just like Bogart never said "play it again, Sam" and no one ever said anything that is actually quoted. Yes, Clipse thought the quote was "hell hath no fury like a couple of brothers from the same mother who have been slighted by music business M&A." So the scorn'd woman doesn't really make it into the album, just like the Doctor didn't make it into the album that claims to advocate him. Yes, both albums should've been called The Chocolate Starfish and The Hot Dog-Flavored Water. Yes, this album is very good, if only because there are no skits that don't involve Ghostface and a foul-mouthed rugrat...and there's a reference to "Blues Clues."

BTW, FMT is in talks with a couple of esteemed but obscured and hermetic rap scholars who have reportedly been working on a complete annotation of HHNF. Both of these cave-dwelling boom-bap thinkers have published myriad treatises in rare but much sought-after trade journals regarding Wu-Tang chess schematics, Kool Keith's displaced schizoid diatribes, and Ja Rule's retardedness. Rumors have attributed their work to JD Salinger by way of Thomas Pynchon and Fluff Guppy by way of Pharaoh Monch. Trust us, however, these two heretofore-anonymous scholars are very real; indeed, they enjoy afternoon bocci matches and weekend outings to thimble museums. FMT is in talks for publishing rights to the HHNF annotation project, and it looks good. Sordid Puppy will most likely be tapped for and introduction.

We'll keep you posted.

Happy Halloween

Mr Bean was a classic TV show. Too bad the movie was crap.

Happy Thanksgiving from your homeboys at Foodmantooth. It's worth mentioning that the inspiration for the title of this humble weblog came from a fervent desire for vittles. We love sustenance, and you should too. Thanksgiving is fantastic because of its simplicity; no gifts are exchanged besides heaping bowls of mashed potatoes and stuffing, and the holiday escapes the commercializing forces that are rampant among its peers. I'm not sure if holidays can be said to be each other's peers.

Eat, drink, and eat and drink more. That's the Foodmantooth way.

I Can't Feel Your Fist

El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead...March 20 2007

Thunderball is my favorite Bond flick ever. Connery plays the role he was born for better than ever, and there's a dope underwater harpoon battle at the end. SP just saw Casino Royale the other day after reading Manohla's open groupie application to underwhelming narcissistic douchebag David Craig (and his bitch-ass crew, who if you want to be down with...). It's bad, really bad, worse than any of the Pierce Brosnan tripe and almost as bad as Yo Momma!. CR opens with an awkwardly overdone chase scene, featuring acrobatics worthy of Hot Flying Sheninjas, but I kept an open mind thereafter because I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE this flick. There's a couple of hot chicks in the movie, and several bitchin cars, but everyone knows that these shows are meant to be a showcase for Bond and his tantalizing slimy carry-on. David Craig is about as slick as my epidermis in the dead of nuclear winter and he carries his one-liners off about as well as Dimmer's cohorts ("I didn't know they made leprechauns in black"...nice) do theirs. Craven Dead better go the way of George Lazenby, or the world is going to be submitted to more of this homoeroticism (no Dancehall Reggae...but oiled up naked man has no place in a Bond movie, and you know this). They need to hire someone else -- Furman P, perhaps -- before this franchise is permanently discredited.

The Game's new album came out last week, and the NYTimes, who seem eager to establish themselves as the newest humpers of mainstream hip-hop, drooled. I couldn't be bothered, because I downloaded the "One Blood" remix and it's 27 hours long so I feel like the album's not worth my money. Jay-Z's Kingdom Come dropped today, a fact I was reminded of early this morning when I roused myself and caught Oliver Wang ethering him and his on NPR in eloquent fashion. Looks like I will not be contributing to Memphis Bleek's do-rag fund this time around. A week from today, Hell Hath No Fury, the Clipse's new album, which I won't describe as "long-awaited" or "eagerly anticipated," because that would be trite, will hit shelves. I don't mean to be the one to cleave the rainclouds, but "Mama I'm Sorry," which made its way onto this mixtape, isn't stimulating any glands (For what it's worth, the D-Block tracks on the same tape show real promise for that crew's upcoming releases (not that this wasn't enough)). I'm not making any rash projections here, for fear that Furman might launch me into the next dimension, but if Hell is anything less than stellar we're going to have a problem.

Next Tuesday, a young canine's devotion to an art form is tested for what may be the last time. Don't forget to tune in.

"Across the herbaceous nap below..."

Reportedly, this is the cover of Hell Hath No Fury

Hey! Everyone cares about this.

Through routes and thoroughfares unbeknownst to yours truly, a copy of Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day, landed in my unreadied mitts today. It's due to drop out of the heavens next Tues, but, if like me, you maintain in your ward a posse comitatus of ninja/pirate mule operatives, you can probably procure the 9 years-coming beast (1085 pages, 3 lbs 6 oz) now with relative felicitousness. Funny, my specially-bred retinue of warrior-pariahs didn't even tell me they were gonna hook me up. Anyway, if you don't roll deep with shadowy underlings who can tap the most down-lowest subterranean black markets with with the casual flick of a shuriken or point of a scimitar, you gon hafta wait til tuesday. Oh yeah I heard it's soon gonna be illegal not to read this book, so getcha paper up. This bastard goes for 35 ramshackles.

I've read about 20 pages. It opens with a boisterous quintet of aeronauts, called the "Chums of Chance" aboard the flying-ship Inconvenience. Here are their names:

Randolph St. Cosmos
Darby Suckling
Lindsay Noseworth
Miles Blundell
Chick Counterfly
...and their Henry James-reading dog, Pugnax

Choice quotes:

"...moreover, the complexities that would attend rigging Blundell in the necessary paraphernalia would tax the topological genius of Herr Riemann himself."

"Across the herbaceous nap below, in the declining light, among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast-bags, running heedless, as across some earthly firmament, sped a stout gentleman in a Norfolk jacket and plus-fours..."

I feel like I just got Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2, 3, and 4 all on the same day. You really gotta get yourself some ninja/pirates.

Luca Brazzi...

Ghost - Mr. esteemed largemouth bass, you look like you need to eat some fake drugs.
Bass - No, what I need is to suppress my incredulity with regards to this album actually coming out.




Ghost - Yo, someone in there who ain't gonna cold dog this fade?

Cali Agents - The Good Life

It's like 73 degrees out. I feel like I live in CA. That's why I'm going to listen to this classic record all day long.

Fuck an elephant

Vote or Suck

If you vote, she'll like you. I swear. Go vote.

*Disclaimer: Foodmantooth still ain't no political blog, yo, but this needs saying. These statements are Sordid Puppy's, not Furman's.

At times, it sort of sucks being part of America's youth. Don't take that statement as an appeal to the sort of whiny, "emo" (already regretting having used that term) sensibilities that bemoan the very opportunities and luxuries afforded us, those we enjoy just for living (as citizens) in the U.S.A. In many ways, young Americans have it better than anyone on the planet: economic and social disadvantages aside, educational opportunity abounds. We have, historically, a relatively open class system, one that avails most of us of a fighting chance to move up in society. We are, on average, wealthier than our peers on other parts of the globe; we own (or are give access to) cars by the time we're twenty and live in apartments with our friends when we go off to college. Jobs, dead-end and otherwise, are plentiful and help us fill our pockets so that we can empty them at the bar, the mall, or the bank. Yeah, it's pretty great being young in America -- things are made gloriously easy for us.

I suppose, then, that I should rephrase: America's youth sucks. For those of you living in a textbook or on a barstool or on top of your significant other, today is November 7th, 2006, and it's Election Day. Across the country today, grown ups add another chore to their daily routines: they vote. By grown ups, I am referring to anyone with the intellectual and moral maturity to recognize that our Escalades on spinners drive around cities, towns, and fields that are part of states that are part of a country called the United States, and that said country is a Democratic society with a representative government. Armed with this awareness, grown ups choose to take an active part in the decisions of said government and the selection of the people that will represent them in government.

In 2004, Snuff Pity launched the "Vote or Die" campaign (or whatever), whose aim, I think, was to get young people to vote. If it was, this wasn't really made clear by anything but the inane slogan itself, and the aberration that was "Vote or Die" makes crystal our problem. "Vote or Die" was far less a declaration of political determination than a fashion statement. It was a passing fad, a way for Diddy to self-promote and make a few dollars off t-shirts. Those same t-shirts, emblazoned with the "movement's" disingenuous motto, ended up in the bargain bin at my local Against All Odds just days after the election. As I recall, they shared shelf space with the stupid, stupid "Why?" tees modeled off the one Jada wore in his ineffectual "conscious" video of the same name (on a side note, it's funny that Kiss now refers to himself as "Al-Qaeda Jada," considering his previously asserted distress over 911). All the while, the geezers, whose comfort was (and still is) ensured by youthful apathy, pointed and laughed at the pathetic appeals for change.

Sordid Puppy wants to let his inner dog out on Diddy, Jada, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and every other person of influence who claim to have a vested interest in seeing young Americans stand up for themselves but fail to follow through and see that it happens. SP also calls out every news network that has a bias, one way or another, that does not exercise the responsibility it has to clearly articulate its (hopefully) informed opinion. Fox News is a behemoth in America's cultural battlefield because it leaves absolutely no question as to the agenda that it pushes, and that is why it is effective. CNN is an absolute sham because it dances around opinion pieces and balks at sounding partisan. I'm not really sure what MSNBC's story is, but I know that this man is the best out on cable news.

Sordid Puppy, speaking of his own mind, and not wishing to misrepresent the illustrious Furman, is kicking off a campaign of his own, whose slogan is not too many letters away from Diddy's but whose effect, in contrast, is real. "Vote or Suck" is the mantra. If you wake up today and do not vote, then you probably don't give a shit. However, if you wake up today and get your daily Foodmantooth fix, hear about "Vote or Suck," and STILL don't vote, then your failure to participate will result in the nagging, unremitting awareness that you are a douchebag. This is not my intention -- it is, rather, that this knowledge spurs you to exercise your rights.

Choose voting, not sucking. I love you.