'Twilight Star' Robert Pattinson a Racist?

Oh, it's a shameful thing. Come on, Black Spin headline editor, haven't you seen the 'How To Tell People They Sound Racist' video?

Saw The Presidents of the United States of America at the Showbox on the 12th. I had my money's worth after the opener, so the fact that the Presidents killed and played 'Supersonics' was gravy upon gravy.

Guitbassist Dave Dederer - who was playing with them for the first time in five years - is the one doing the speech at the beginning, which I managed to catch all of on my 3GS from the VIP...and then completely forget I was filming it. Hence the distortion, shaking, and me yelling 'Blackburn!' ten seconds in. PUSA instantly became one of my favorite live bands, see them if you have the slightest opportunity.

This version of 'Supersonics' is slightly different from the one I own and many know because Sarunas Marciulonis gets namedropped [joyously] here and he wasn't on the '96 Finals team that the Sonics ran off a bunch of singles of this for. I'm glad PUSA loved Sarunas. He's awesome.

Here's that version:

Presidents of the United States of America - Supersonics

The song they charge into at the end of the video's is 'We Are Not Going To Make It' from their '94 self-titled.

Sky Blu: I have no hard feelings for him, I'm sure he's a good dude.

Redfoo: Will you vote for him?

Sky Blu: [matter-of-factly] No. 'Cause I'm a democrat, he's a repub.

Can it all be so simple? This is what I read on Newsvine with far too much frequency. I would never vote for ______ because I am ______. That 'gang mentality' bit Chris Rock did six years ago is relevant as ever. Sky Blu looks like he's explaining something to an alien. 'Look, this is how it works.' SMH.

Other thoughts:

• As a frequent rap apologist, I have no defense for LMFAO, who are truly lowest common denominator club music, but it's shortsighted to get all reactionary and claim that this guy will 'end up in prison or murdered'. He's a rich kid, Berry Gordy's grandson. Not a gangsta.
• Good gravy I forgot how bad LMFAO is. Have you heard 'Shots'? Gack. Lil Jon is slumming.
• You can lean your seat back in first class. It's never occurred to me, but I feel confident that flight attendants do not roll up on first-class folks and ask them to return their seat to upright and locked. That's where the money's at. And that's why Romney was prodding Sky Blu in the first place.
• I wonder if Blu is cringing at this the way I do whenever I remember House of Payne is still on.
• LMFAO actually come off really, really well in this. It's good PR, and anyone who will dismiss it because they're in their underwear would probably dismiss it in suits at a press conference anyway.
• If you're on that plane, who do you recognize first, LMFAO or Mitt Romney? Do you feel good about recognizing either?

I'm having a good time [though there's a brambly meta issue on the green site I need to comment on.] Atlanta is awesome.

The Vortex will put you in a food coma and serve you Coke in what seems like a bucket; stopping to get gas afterward and peeping the pallets of Pepsi seemingly guarding the pumps was pretty hilarious.

Viva SS's iPhone app.

Disembarking in ATL and here's what I see.

It's this [click to go right to the move - YouTube, if I can jump, then let me embed with jump]:

And it may have been in response to Aaron Rodgers' patented belt-mime, which is cooler than anything Brett Favre has done in the past decade.

Previously: desean jackson, mainstreamin' jerkin'

So I'm at the trader joe's in Ballard - where I am never going again because it is circle-the-ear-with-yr-index packed - and this is in the garage next to it.

It's not a primo spot and the handicapped ones are closer to the stairs/entrance.

Awesomely progressive or...kinda classist?

Mystery Yelling Face Painted Girl from Double T Nation.Except now there is no classic Tech fashion, because there is no Mike Leach. Leach was ostensibly fired for insubordination, because TTU wanted him to apologize for putting a recently concussed sophomore in a dark shed. [Except this is a school that courted and coddled Bobby Knight, so that's garbage. For more, peep this great SBNation assessment, this NV discussion, and the NYT article that strapped a rocket to the mythology of Leach.]

I'd rather talk about identity.

Bleary-eyed me after watching the Raiders shellack Rice. Note the 'guns up' child to the right.The things I'll remember from my visit to Jones AT&T stadium in September: the amount of jalapenos on my nachos [Texas-sized], the number of chilluns both in attendance [Texas-sized], and the message they displayed on the scoreboard after one of Tech's eight touchdowns:

We score a lot.

Leach crafted an identity for Texas Tech that was both locked-in and exciting: they gave no eff and no quarter on offense and were going to spread the field and throw waves of receivers at you in something called the Air Raid - until your secondary had their hands on their hips and your defensive coordinator was getting used to the taste of Robitussin.

From that NYT piece:

He regards receivers as raffle tickets: the more of them you have, the more likely one will hit big. Some go wide, some go deep, some come across the middle. All are fast. (When Leach recruits high-school players, he is forced to compromise on most talents, but he insists on speed.) All have been conditioned to run much more than a football player normally does. A typical N.F.L. receiver in training might run 1,500 yards of sprints a day; Texas Tech receivers run 2,500 yards.

I just watched TTU beat Michigan State in a really good game. They looked like Mike Leach's offense under his successors. Steven Sheffield popped off the bench and looked like a Tech signal-caller, which is to say, awesome. Tech went for it on 4th down twice up 3 in the final few to slam the door.

Hold onto the feelings, Tech fans, because there's no guarantee anyone can run this offense like Leach did, and without this identity, you can count on your hands and toes folks in my neck of the woods who'll be paying any attention to Lubbock for the next few. Good luck.

The other notable bit in the Alamo Bowl was Michigan State running this ad:

Yeah that's Nick Drake. Sporting News noticed, apparently this premiered a year ago.

Michigan State University would like you to know that, because its athletes wear the color green when they play sports, it is a profoundly pro-environment institution. Oh, I can only imagine the bafflement that a certain psychotically depressed British folk singer would feel at being associated with such a message.

It was seriously one of the weirdest things I've ever seen on my television, and I'm casually watching Jersey Shore. Tech might have an identity problem with their football team, but MSU's got a serious marketing problem for the whole school.

FUCK you & FUCK your "code of honor" what you do is barr freedom of speech. nothing I have said is in anyway wrong! FUCK NEWSVINE!

I believe in Freedom of speech and Freedom of Expression - and the right to excerise that - and thats what this country was also founded on - (this isn't China) - I'm very offended and upset that somebody such as this moron whos only 23 yrs.old, and obviously Naive as hell, and obviously not the brightest or most intelligent idiot on earth, would take offense to what I said,, and how it was used, being I didn't use any cuss words and since it was NOT directed at him anyway, or a personel attack towards him directly,,, so if the words Raghead or Towelhead offend him in anyway whatso ever

You allow people to remain on here, that incite and continue to post obscene and disrespecttul remarks about other posters and anyone else, especially President Obama. When will you clean this up, and do not use the flimsy excuse of freedom of speech. That is not freedom of speech at all.

Unfreeze my account. You are interfering with my second amendment rights.

One of the most difficult things for tutors and teachers to keep in mind is to never caution students that something is 'easy'. Easy is relative. If someone's struggling with a concept, it's not easy for them, no matter how much you might know about it.

My Newsvine Year's Resolution is to never type 'It's not hard' about a site issue. Instead, I'll write articles I can refer back to.

DeSean Jackson, suddenly the scariest WR in the NFL, busted this out during Sunday Night Football [I wanted to type 'SNF', but how many abbreviations can you throw in a sentence before it becomes signifying for in-crowded-ness' sake?]

This is jerkin', an L.A. invention that is accompanied by a bangin' blip-based soundtrack. Matthew Africa explains better than I can:

Jerk music is like a Bizarro-world version of rap, where women rap better than men and a lot of the traditional rules about sex and race get gleefully mauled-- dudes wear fluorescent nut-huggers, dance and brag about giving head and dressing like white boys.

Matthew's jerk mix is essential listening if you're curious. Also super NSFW.

Specifically, DeSean 'doin' that reject', according to Audio Push in the video after the jump. Here's their vid for 'Teach Me How to Jerk', the best of the jerk tracks that caught a little dance-craze buzz last summer. Welcome to the subculture, new jacks.

DeSean is one of my favorites because he's consistently repping Cali [admirable in Philly] and has a killer web presence - Snoop Dogg does the intro to his site and his twitter is awesome; apparently, he's willing to bust out the reject in the club, too.

I picked the Eagles to win the Super Bowl at the beginning of the year and I don't feel so bad about it because of the DJACC factor.